Chapter 210-1: Flow of Fortune Qi (1) |
Primordial Altar.
A flood of the latest player outputs flashed through Qi Sheng’s mind.
He discovered a forum post whose heat was rapidly climbing.
The post described a bizarre new phenomenon in the Ascension Sea Region.
The poster stated that Written Word seemed to have cut the story yet again, the cultivation system had already vanished, and a new combat power system legion had been born within the Written Word domain.
Even more outrageous, this time Written Word actually took the initiative to launch an offensive against the Ascension race.
The reversal of offense and defense sparked heated discussion among players, with a strong sense of the world’s situation shifting like storm clouds while they stood aside enjoying the spectacle.
The topic of discussion was all about why Written Word would do this.
Some players offered guesses, saying that after cutting the story, Written Word started a smash-hit work, the legion’s combat power received a massive boost, and it now had the confidence to take the initiative.
Various viewpoints sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain, but players were generally in a watching-for-fun mindset.
Whether the Ascension race or Written Word faction won, players did not care.
They only cared about how to carve out a share from the chaotic war.
Just as players were discussing on the forum, the players lurking in the domain fog of the Written Word domain were affected by Written Word’s offensive.
When Written Word took the initiative to attack, these players regarded as Extraterritorial Heavenly Demons also became targets.
During this time some players discovered something strange.
The legion system in the Written Word domain could be switched at will, and among them there was a legion composed of spiritual-body lifeforms.
In the eyes of players, this special legion was simply built precisely to target them.
Because spiritual-body lifeforms had no near-death state.
After the life structure collapsed it would disperse. In other words, without sufficiently powerful mental power attributes, players simply could not capture Written Word warriors in spiritual-body mode across above them by dozens of levels.
If Written Word henceforth always fought with a legion system built from spiritual-body lifeforms, then the get rich quick route of players capturing Written Word warriors would be completely cut off.
Unless one’s own mental strength could suppress spiritual-body lifeforms and complete the capture through attribute suppression.
But once a player had the ability to suppress a Written Word warrior, why would they still need to capture a Written Word warrior? They would certainly have higher pursuits.
Regarding this kind of discussion, after scanning it Qi Sheng paid it no more attention.
Already aware of the changes in the Written Word domain, he switched his gaze to the revenue feedback data.
At the current stage, he was mainly investing sacrificial power income into building the weapon system.
Once the weapon system was perfected, he would issue a new round of player qualifications on the Monster World official site.
This time the tentative plan was to issue 500 thousand qualification slots to the public.
The speed of issuing qualifications began to gradually increase as player revenue grew.
And in the recent period, the number of Primordial Monsters contained had reached 51.
During this time, three more new Primordial Monsters were successfully contained.
The first monster was a second-generation Primordial, Void Grasp, contained by the player ‘A Shark Is A Little Nanliang’ in the Colorful Mist Coast region.
This was an damage output-type Inherited soul suitable only for spellcaster players.
The trait effect was to consume mental power to generate an arm composed of void energy at the target location, which could perform slapping, grabbing, crushing, and similar operations.
Its strength performed well in tests by research-party players.
The advantage was that it had no flight trajectory like Inherited souls such as Inkflame or Thunderburst when released, and it did not require throwing. It could be generated directly beside enemies at a relatively long distance, with no delay in output.
It could also be paired with elemental damage output Inherited souls to grant Void Grasp elemental traits, pushing damage up another tier.
The star vein combination with the highest forum likes was: Void Grasp, Scatter Arrows, Qi Eater, Inkflame, Thunderburst, Bind, Wither.
This star vein combination leaned toward functional output.
In the demonstration video, the research-party player raised his right hand, and dozens of void arms, sliced by the Scatter Arrows trait, were generated a hundred meters ahead.
Arcs of electricity and raging ink-black flames coiled around the arms.
One slap down caused an area bombardment plus elemental strike effect. All tested monsters hit were affected by Bind’s immobilization and took continuous damage added by Wither.
It could damage output to groups and perform area attacks, with a solid performance.
But players who liked the Inherited soul Void Grasp generally cared not about output damage but about its instant-cast effect.
It could catch enemies off guard.
The second was a third-generation Primordial Monster, Siphon Lance, contained by the player ‘Shiqi Ku’ in Spirit Weapon Valley.
This third-generation Primordial had just been contained and immediately rose to one of the strongest of the version.
It was also regarded by a large number of spellcaster players as a late-game must-embed Inherited soul.
The trait effect of Siphon was: lock onto a perceived target, draw the target’s mental power, and convert it into one’s own mental power reserve (the siphon effect is affected by three factors: the target’s mental power strength, one’s own mental power strength, and Inherited soul level).
Although Siphon was not an Inherited soul like Qi Eater that could directly restore mental power, it was one of the rare Inherited souls that could enhance spellcaster sustain.
In the test videos released by research-party players, the performance of the Siphon trait was very eye-catching.
Especially when paired with the Scatter Arrows Inherited soul, which only physical players would choose, it could perform continuous siphon recovery on multiple targets.
In the test video, after adjusting Inherited soul levels and attributes, the research-party player attempted to connect siphon to 100 targets simultaneously, and the blue bar refilled at a speed visible to the naked eye.
But the weaknesses of the Siphon Inherited soul were also very obvious.
The trait effect was affected by the target’s mental power strength.
If you siphoned a target with strong mental power, you could not siphon their mental power. If you siphoned a target with weak mental power, you could not siphon much.
Releasing the Siphon trait also consumed mental power.
It was easy for mental power consumption to exceed mental power recovery.
Secondly, it occupied a precious star vein slot yet could not provide effective damage output.
But it could be foreseen that this was a late-game Inherited soul whose strength would continue to climb as the star vein level rose.
Forum players built a large number of powerful builds centered on Siphon.
Among them, some players said that if you could not siphon enemies, then siphon teammates.
Let teammates act as power banks, drinking mental recovery potions by your side, and you siphon teammates’ mental power to quickly restore your state and keep damage outputting damage.
This suggestion even received likes and a reward from God King.
It was originally a for-fun playstyle, and the player who posted the idea only did it for laughs on the forum, never intending to use it in actual combat.
But in God King’s eyes, this jokey playstyle became an effective strategy that could significantly enhance his own command ability.
Every time he conducted war command, he needed to prepare a spatial satchel full of mental recovery potions.
Constantly drinking potions also affected his command efficiency.
But with the Siphon Inherited soul it was different. Bringing a power bank by his side could save the step of drinking potions, allowing him to concentrate fully on commanding the player legion in battle.
Among them, the star vein combination with the highest forum likes was: Bind, Siphon, Qi Eater, Mental Shockwave, Wither.
This star vein combination looked unremarkable, yet players who had tested it regarded it as the strongest single-combat Inherited soul of the version.
It was mainly constructed with the Bind Inherited soul at the core. In the demonstration video, the research-party player used Bind to forcibly immobilize the target and then dealt continuous Siphon stacking Wither damage strikes.
If the target showed a tendency to break free, a blow of Mental Shockwave would be added, continuing immobilization and siphon.
Keeping the target always in an immobilized state, its single-combat performance was excellent.
The weaknesses were also obvious: the damage output was too low.
It had neither the versatility of functional support nor the burst damage of damage output players.
It could only rely on the continuous effects of Wither and Siphon.
Aside from being strong in single combat, it was good for nothing else and was not suitable for war mode.
It only suited lone-wolf players challenging monsters stronger than themselves in the wild, but with very low kill efficiency.
The last Primordial was an unexpected gain by the player ‘No Longer Wields a Blade’ while fishing in the Ascension Sea Region. He hauled it up only to discover it was a dragonfish of pure gold.
What surprised this player even more was that the analysis showed it was a fifth-generation Primordial.
The Primordial Monster’s trait was named Gold Coin, and the analysis introduction showed that one could draw positive extra returns through the flow of fortune qi.
This introduction was extremely vague and left forum players baffled.
In the end it was Guide that gave a clear answer.
So-called flow of fortune qi referred to actively participated economic activities such as trade and investment, all of which could bring about the flow of fortune qi.
And positive extra returns referred to earning profit rather than losing transactions.
At the present stage, players had only one playstyle suitable for the “Gold Coin” trait, and that was to cultivate Chubby Peach, which could be regarded as a kind of value investment.
Embedding a level 1 Gold Coin Inherited soul could obtain an extra 8% return, stored in the form of the power of fortune qi.
When the stored value reached 100 sacrificial power, it could generate a gold coin, which could be sacrificed at any time and exchanged for sacrificial power.
After learning the definite usage method of the Gold Coin trait, there was a wave of climax among forum players.
They thought they could exploit a bug in the Trading House to obtain extra returns, 8% each time. As long as they repeated the cycle infinitely, they would have inexhaustible sacrificial power.
But in fact, the buy-and-resell trading model could not adapt to the Gold Coin trait.
The reason was simple. Many trading models in the Trading House were not positive returns and had percentage fees drawn from principal.
Even without a fee, it was difficult to form a flow of fortune qi.
Because the Gold Coin trait required naturally formed energy, and players needed genuine value exchange and emotional investment.
Items normally listed by players and sold through transactions could obtain a flow of fortune qi and receive an extra Gold Coin power cashback.
But if it was done with a ‘farming’ mentality in cooperation with other players, engaging in back-and-forth reselling, then a flow of fortune qi could not be generated. Even if it was the first listing before the reselling began, a flow of fortune qi could not be generated.
The criterion of judgment was set by the rule trait of the Gold Coin Inherited soul. There was no possibility of bug exploitation.
If it could be exploited, in fact Qi Sheng would want to exploit infinite gold coins even more than the players and exchange them for sacrificial power.
Therefore the method of order brushing was not feasible.
After learning the correct usage from Guide, the heat of the Gold Coin Inherited soul plummeted on the forum.
Embedding a fifth-generation Inherited soul required an upfront cost of 30 thousand sacrificial power, and not only did it bring no combat power increase, its trait effect performance was also extremely mediocre.
At least at the present stage, it was difficult to obtain excess returns through the Gold Coin Inherited soul.
As forum players put it: I have 30 thousand sacrificial power. Using it to improve my strength to hunt stronger monsters is far more useful than embedding a Gold Coin.
In the eyes of quite a few players, the Gold Coin Inherited soul was not as powerful as the newly contained Void Grasp and Siphon Inherited souls.
But forum players also all understood one principle.
Whether an Inherited soul was powerful or not had never been fixed. Since Gold Coin was a fifth-generation Inherited soul, it proved it had very high development potential.
Perhaps in the near future, the Gold Coin Inherited soul would shine brilliantly.
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