Basic Martial and Talent Training Guide

This guide covers the various forms of martial art and talent training and how they affect the gameplay.

Introduction

There are already English guides on the combat mechanics and the character attributes. This guide will instead cover how to improve them via Martial Art (功法) and/or Talents (技艺). This guide is based on game version Beta 0.1.9.2.

In both cases, the character has attributes such as Natural Quality (资质) and Attained Knowledge (造诣). The Natural Quality (资质) is generated during the character's creation and can be improved via genetics (i.e. via your spouse and children), via Reincarnation (轮回) and via the Ancestral Hall (祠堂) building in your Town. This guide will not cover those topics. The Attained Knowledge (造诣) are improved by spending experience and time to read books and are completely transmitted to the next generation via the Taiwu Sword.



Both Martial Art (功法) and Talents (技艺) have different Categories (such as: Poetry, Sword, etc) and each Category has different Skills/Techniques. Each Skill/Technique has a corresponding Book. The next sections will explain how those work.

Martial Art Training

Martial Art (功法) are the combat techniques necessary to fight enemies. Each individual Technique has a few different progression stats.

Martial Art Practice Level (修习程度)

The Practice Level (修习程度) represents the ability for the character to apply each Technique. A Practice Level (修习程度) of at least 25% is typically necessary for a character to be able to equip and use the Technique. An exception to this rule are the Internal Skills (內功) which will grant you Ki without the need to equip (more on this later). This stat is increased via various methods:

• Practice (修习): You can practice the skill by spending Experience and Time in your Training Hall] (练功房) building you can build for your Town. The % increase by ~1% for each day unit you spend. You will hit Limit Break barriers along the way. To pass those you need to perform Limit Break (突破).
  
  
  
  
• Limit Break (突破): Limit Breaks are necessary to pass the barriers during training. In your Training Hall (练功房), they cost 20 days and a certain amount of Experience. To succeed in Limit Break you need to play a mini-game to connect two nodes in a grid within 20 moves. Every point you collect along the way will be added to your Practice Level (修习程度). You can go beyond 20 moves but for every additional move above 20 you will go into a Fallen State (走火入魔), which will increase your Internal Breathing (内息) and deal both External Damage (外伤) and Internal Damage (内伤). Typically, I found going 26/20 can deal enough damage to kill you at lower levels. If you cannot connect the start node with the end node, the Limit Break fails and you don't gain any actual levels.
  
  
  
• Combat: You gain a fraction of Practice Level (修习程度) via each activation of the Technique in battle. Note that method this does not work for Techniques that cannot be activated, such as Internal Skills (內功) and Passive-Only Special Techniques (绝技). For those, you have to use the other training methods to increase. Some Special Techniques (绝技) are Defensive-type and can be activated in combat, so you can level them via combat like normal.
  
  

The Practice Level (修习程度) has the following effect on the Technique:

• 25% is required for you to be able to equip and activate a Technique
  
• Increases the stats of the Technique: The stats appears to be increasing at different intervals (i.e. when close to 25%, 50%, 75%, etc).
  
  • For Internal Techniques (內功) this also increases the amount of Ki you gain. The cultivation of Ki and the Five Elements (五行) is a very tricky and complex topic that warrants its own separate guide that I might make in the future. You can either concentrate on a few Elements or cultivate all five equally and become the Avatar.
• Increases the level requirements of the Technique: Along with the Technique becoming stronger, the value of each category level requirement also increases. The levels required vary based on the type of the Technique and the Sect it comes from, and can include Martial Art (功法) levels, Talent (技艺) levels and Character Attribute (属性) levels. Your Martial Art and Talent level for each category is the sum of the Natural Quality (资质) and Attained Knowledge (造诣) of that category. You can still use the Technique if the requirements are not met but it will have reduced Efficiency (发挥效率), reducing the stats proportionally.
  
• At 100% Practice Level (修习程度), the Technique gains a bonus 20% increase in stats and effects.

General Practice Tips

• You can gain all the Practice Level (修习程度) via Limit Break (突破) without ever Practicing (修习). Using practice normally gives you a relatively fixed progression but Limit Break (突破) allows you to gamble to achieve as much as 30-40 levels within 20 days instead of 20-25 levels you normally get via traditional practice. You can also voluntarily go into Fallen State (走火入魔) to get more points and heal yourself via medicine. There exist common items to reduce your Internal Breathing (内息) level but just like all medication they have reduced efficiency if your Internal Breathing (内息) is too high.
  
  
• If you don't want to save load too often to abuse the Limit Break (突破) system, you should mix all three methods accordingly. Remember you can also increase the levels via actual combat. There is usually no need to increase the level after the last limit break as you can use combat to finish leveling it up. However, do remember you can not level up Internal Skills (內功) and Passive-Only Special Techniques (绝技) via combat.

Martial Art Theory Level (心法等级)

The Theory Level (心法等级) represents how much the character understand the theory behind the Technique. It typically requires reading the associated Book (秘籍). There are two versions of every Martial Art Books, one is the Original Book (真传秘籍) and the other is the Copied Book (手抄秘籍).

• Reading each page of the Original Book (真传秘籍) gives you Normal Theory (正练) Level.
  
• Reading each page of the Copied Book (手抄秘籍) gives you Reverse Theory (逆练) Level.
  
• You can only read each page once, whether if comes from Original Book (真传秘籍) or Copied Book (手抄秘籍). In other words, you cannot undo the type of reading you made on each page, whether it's normal or reversed.

The Theory Level (心法等级) can be raised via the following methods:

• Study (研读): You can read the Book (秘籍) by spending 10 days in your Training Hall (练功房). This will open up a new mini-game that this guide does not cover for now. Books have a durability which limits the amount of times you can read it. The higher the Grade of the Technique, the more difficult it is to read it. The missing slots represent missing pages in the book, which makes them significantly harder to read. Using this method, each page progression is all or nothing (i.e. if you can't pass a page you will not gain any progression % in that page)
  
  
  
  
• Combat: You can read a % of the pages in the Book after every battle you win if you equip the Book to your character in your inventory. This is a slow but quite efficient way to gain Theory Level (心法等级) as unlike with reading you can slowly progress through missing pages.

The Theory Level (心法等级) has the following effects:

• Every level increases your Attained Knowledge (造诣) in that Technique's Category. Higher Grade Technique grants more points per level. You can only obtain maximum Attained Knowledge (造诣) for each category for each Grade once. In other words, reading 3 different books of the same grade will only give you Attained Knowledge (造诣) equal to the highest level among all of them.
  
  
• Every Normal Theory (正练) level increases the potential of the Technique over 100%. The amount of potential stat increase per Normal Theory (正练) level depends on the Grade of the Technique. At full 10 Normal Theory (正练) levels, Lowest Grade Techniques are 130%, so 3% per level.
  
  • Positive: Increases maximum potential of Technique stats and effects
    
  • Negative: None.
  
  
• Every Reverse Theory (逆练) level decreases the potential of the Technique over 100% (to a minimum of 100%) and decreases the attribute requirements. The amount of potential decrease per Reverse Theory (逆练)
  is equal to that of the Normal Theory (正练) level for the same Technique.
  
  • Positive: Decreases the requirements, making it easier to have high efficiency.
    
  • Negative: You won't maximize the theoretical potential.
  
  
• At Normal Theory (正练) >=5, Reverse Theory (逆练) <=4, the Technique gains an unique Special Effect . Offensive Techniques currently don't have any Special Effects.
  
  
• At Reverse Theory (逆练) >=5, Normal Theory (正练) <=4, the Technique gains an unique Reverse Special Effect. Offensive Techniques currently don't have any Reverse Special Effects.
  
  
• At Normal Theory (正练) == Reverse Theory (逆练), you reach Equilibrium Theory (心法冲解) and get the positive benefits of both Normal Theory (正练) and Reverse Theory (逆练) without the negatives. However, you get neither the Special Effect nor the Reverse Special Effect of the Technique. As Offensive-Type Techniques don't currently have any Special Effects, this is the most desirable state. You get both reduced requirement and maximum potential.
  
  

General Theory Tips

• You do not need any Theory Level (心法等级) to use the Technique unlike with Practice Level (修习程度).
  
  
• Gaining Support from a Sect will unlock bonus for reading that Sect's Books, making it easier to read. This is especially important for not hitting a wall when attempting to elevate yourself.
  
  
• If you learn the Technique directly from a NPC, you can acquire the Technique without having any Practice Level (修习程度) or Theory Level (心法等级) progress (i.e. a complete blank state) regardless of the version of the book you get from them. This might be important if you don't want any Reverse Theory (逆练) on a new skill but only have the Copied Book (手抄秘籍).
  
  • The trick is to give the Copied Book (手抄秘籍) to a NPC in your village or that is affectionate with you. Let them learn it and then teach it back to you, which has the chance of becoming the Original Book (真传秘籍). I call it book laundering :P
    
  • There is limit on how high grade the Techniques you can learn from a NPC based on the number of hearts they have for you. Also, if you don't actually practice the Techniques you learned from them to a certain %, they will refuse to teach you anymore until you do.
    
  • Learning officially from the Sect requires previous Technique in the progression tree to unlock the next Grade.
  
  
• If you have enough attribute levels to succeed at reading a book or if your only copy of the book that is missing a lot of pages, you can still equip the book to read the missing pages.
  
  
• Offensive Technique currently (version 0.1.9.2) do not have any Normal or Reverse Theory Special Effects. As such, it's currently more efficient to perform Normal-5 Reversed-5 Equilibrium Theory (心法冲解) as you don't lose any Special Effects while gaining the benefit of maximum reduced requirement and maximum potential. However, I cannot guarantee Special Effects are not added to Offensive Techniques in future versions.
  
  
• Learning the Technique from a NPC will grant you either the Original Book (真传秘籍) or the Copied Book (手抄秘籍). You can potentially use save-loading to get the version you want.
  
  
• You can trade/buy the copies of the Book with a NPC if you have started learning it (as long as it shows up as acquired in your character sheet, it can have 0% progress in both practice and theory).
  
  • NPCs who are official members of a Sect will always have the Original Book (真传秘籍) version you can trade. However, you can not get the Copied Book (手抄秘籍) version from them via trade. As such it's always advantageous to get the Copied Book (手抄秘籍) version when you learn the Technique from them, which is currently possible/random (not sure if intended), if you plan to use Equilibrium Theory (心法冲解).
    
  • NPCs who are not official members of a Sect are more likely to have Copied Book (手抄秘籍) to trade for, although you can obtain the Original Book (真传秘籍) version randomly via learning.

Talent Training

More to come.

[Gideon Wolfe]

Great guide, helped a lot!

[XYZhc]

O，my Gay,难为你们了

[Tchey]

Thanks for all this