Sacred Souls: Genesis

Chapter 65: Chapter 64 Distribution of the BOSS (Seeking Recommendations!!)

After the official promotion for the Battle of Divinity went online, Mo Shigui found some time to hold a strategy meeting.

This strategy meeting was not for the Dancing Nuclear Guild but for the seven major guilds within Holy Spirit.

Actually, it’s not exactly seven; currently, in Holy Spirit, the guilds that are considered T1 level are only Dancing Nuclear, Abyss Temple, and the Silent Dream Push for Marriage Committee…

The third guild purely relies on the advantage of numbers to build up its presence and is more like a fan-based guild. However, the five guilds below them—Imperial Dynasty, Nan Feng Gale, Gray Eyes Association, Cola Fanatic Guild, and Night Speed—each have the support of professional esports teams.

While these five guilds’ development within Holy Spirit cannot compare to that of Dancing Nuclear and Abyss Temple, they still manage to unify the actions of their players.

For instance, for this world instance of the Battle of Divinity, Mo Shigui hosted this strategy meeting to discuss with the seven major guilds how to divide the battlefield, so as to avoid conflicts over claiming a BOSS.

The location of the strategy meeting was a chat group, into which Mo Shigui pulled every guild leader within Holy Spirit whose name was worth mentioning.

‘Discuss? Old Song, are you sure you’re not just pulling us here for a quarrel?’

The leader of Abyss Temple, Can Xin, was the first to speak up, and after he finished, he sent an emoji of hammering a sad yellow face.

‘I’ve already changed the group name to the Holy Spirit Guild Quarrel Group, happy now?’ Mo Shigui replied.

‘Satisfied, satisfied. We are still studying this new instance, but looking at the number of BOSSes, there seems to be six in total. It appears that the final BOSS can only be battled after defeating the six lesser ones. What’s the division strategy?’

Can Xin was very active, flooding the chat group with a series of screenshots, which were precisely the official images that Jiang Qiao took earlier of the five Knights and an axe-wielding man under Queen Mei’s command.

‘Abyss Temple has an abundance of Mages and Assassins, why don’t you guys try clearing the Yellow Jacket Knight first? Any objections?’ Mo Shigui asked.

‘Old Song, have you been planting spies in our guild again? Forget it, it’s all routine. We’ll take on the Yellow Jacket Knight, and indeed we are in urgent need of her ring. I’ll give you face on this.’ Can Xin agreed very quickly.

At the moment, the official Holy Spirit promotional page has only released the CG images of these six BOSSes, along with some of the rewards for the Battle of Divinity instance. Among them, the Yellow Jacket Ring dropped by the Yellow Jacket Knight is a must-have epic equipment for most high-damage professions.

The Yellow Jacket Ring is a level 50 epic ring with an effect that can increase critical hit damage by 10 percent.

This bonus is incredibly important for some high burst-damage professions.

‘Old Song… What era are you living in that you still want to play guild-territory mob clearing? Aren’t you afraid of fans bashing your own guild?’

A guild leader with a bubble ID popped up; he was the leader of the Cola Fanatic Guild, currently ranked fourth among all the Holy Spirit guilds, with two hundred seventy-two members.

‘Clearing maps for mobs is a strategy from ten years ago. Look clearly at the format of this instance, a world instance… where all players participate. Passersby who want to join us in the fight are certainly welcome. This meeting is to prevent us from competing for BOSSes and from interfering with each other while battling them,’ Mo Shigui immediately replied.

The term “clearing maps” was once despised by ordinary players years ago, meaning that some overbearing guilds would block off a portion of the map and prevent ordinary players from entering.

But now, in the eyes of these guild leaders, such behavior is stupid and juvenile.

Nowadays, almost all of the seven major guilds in Holy Spirit have the backing of professional esports clubs. They engage in Holy Spirit partly because these clubs want to expand their reach there and partly to attract new fans.

If any guild were to engage in such heinous acts as clearing maps, they risk being denounced by players online to the point of quitting the game.

The reward acquisition method for the Battle of Divinity instance is also player-friendly. Players only need to deplete the BOSS’s health to obtain a currency called “Soul” from it.

For example, if a player wants to obtain the Yellow Jacket Ring, they simply need to deplete about five thousand to ten thousand of the Yellow Jacket Knight’s health points to extract enough of her “Souls”.

In addition, there is a “Prestige” reward system within the Battle of Divinity that Mo Shigui has not studied in detail.

The strategy meeting did not last long; under Mo Shigui’s leadership, the seven major guilds determined their portions for pioneering in the Battle of Divinity.

After the discussion, the Dancing Nuclear Guild ultimately took responsibility for pioneering the Wolf Knight in the dungeon area.

The reward for the Wolf Knight includes a Wolf Ring that can increase the toughness attribute, which is very useful for the warrior-heavy Dancing Nuclear Guild.

After the strategy meeting ended, Mo Shigui closed the chat group.

The reputations of the various guild leaders provide some assurance, at least for the first few days of the Battle of Divinity, the guilds would not engage in skirmishes over BOSSes.

But as time goes on, Mo Shigui isn’t sure which guild might break this… agreement that wouldn’t exactly be called a pact.

Mo Shigui glanced at the time— it was only one o’clock in the morning, and he could still play for another half an hour before logging off.

He had used up all his instance attempts for the day and would need to wait until six in the morning for a refresh. After thinking for a moment, Mo Shigui decided to go ahead and complete the preliminaries for the Battle of Divinity.

The preliminary quest for the Battle of Divinity is the one posted by Guardian Spirit·Fureya that unlocks the second stage of affinity.

It is a series of quests, and players must complete the series to unlock the second stage of Fureya’s affinity.

Mo Shigui is not particularly interested in the NPC’s affinity levels because he sees through it as a means for game planners to manipulate players’ actions. If Mo Shigui were to plan, he would give Fureya a change of costume function, where the costumes would have to be purchased with real money.

This would help Holy Spirit’s revenues rise significantly.

However, up to this point, Holy Spirit has had no means of in-game purchasing, which Mo Shigui finds very strange. He can only assume that the game is in the beta testing phase and the officials are not ready to start making money yet.

Mo Shigui walked into his Resurrection Cathedral.

“Welcome back, kind Holy Spirit.” His Fureya hurriedly stood up from the steps upon his return.

These detailed actions also serve to make players think that Fureya is a real person, not a robot.

Mo Shigui didn’t respond to Fureya and walked up to her to click the button to complete the quest.

The prerequisite for the Battle of Divinity quest line is that players reach level fifty, after which they can receive a quest named “Awakening,” This quest can unlock the currently strongest skill of each profession, the awakening skill.

However, the problem is the awakening skill also needs to be unlocked in the Battle of Divinity.

“What a hassle,” Mo Shigui muttered under his breath after glancing at the subsequent quest chain, but as soon as he finished complaining, he suddenly realized something and looked up at his Fureya.

“May I help you with anything, kind Holy Spirit?” Fureya asked.

“…”

Mo Shigui wasn’t surprised by this; players who stared at Fureya for a while would hear her say this line. What surprised Mo Shigui was…

“Did you forget to give me the quest reward?” Mo Shigui realized he had completed the quest without receiving the subsequent reward, a key item named “Fureya’s Talisman.”

“It was… my oversight, I apologize, kind Holy Spirit,” she said, reaching up to her delicate neck and unclasping a pale silver necklace she was wearing.

Mo Shigui didn’t reach out to take it, as the item should have automatically appeared in his inventory, but it did not…

Fureya held the necklace in midair as if waiting for Mo Shigui to take it himself.

What’s going on? Another narrative performance by the system?

Mo Shigui watched Fureya, and when she spoke earlier, her usually emotionless voice… Mo Shigui detected a tinge of timidity, and the hand holding the necklace seemed to tremble slightly.

This NPC was afraid.

The NPC is afraid? Why… Is it a system performance as well? And why does Mo Shigui always feel like his Fureya isn’t very willing to hand over the necklace?

Mo Shigui’s hand gently clasped Fureya’s pale silver necklace, and as he did so, he clearly felt Fureya’s hand shake slightly.

“You’re scared,” Mo Shigui stated, if there were no pre-set response by the system, Fureya should not react at all.

But Fureya did have a pre-set reaction; she lightly pursed her lips and eventually said slowly.

“This necklace contains the life force that allows me to exist, kind Holy Spirit. Please… take this necklace and save this shattered world,” Fureya’s voice was somewhat choked up.

Is this really just another system-scripted scene?

“Oh.”

Mo Shigui nonchalantly agreed and took the necklace from Fureya’s hand to inspect it.

Fureya’s Talisman.

Description: Useful only in the Battle of Divinity instance, effective when placed in the backpack, it can block the invasion of the Corpse Curse three times; after three times, the talisman will be corroded by the curse and will need to be purified before it can be used again.

The Corpse Curse, Mo Shigui had read about this setting in the instance introduction, but what he was more concerned about was the setting that after three Corpse Curses, if a player dies one more time, their level would decrease.

This type of high difficulty challenge was exactly what Mo Shigui was looking for.

Having accepted the reward, Mo Shigui did not continue any communication with Fureya and planned to leave.

Since playing as a Holy Spirit, he had always been busy running instances and upgrading his equipment, only interacting with NPCs when he needed to trigger hidden quests.

Therefore, the number of times Mo Shigui spoke with his Fureya did not exceed ten.

“Please…” Fureya looked at the retreating figure of Mo Shigui as if she wanted to say something but eventually stopped it in her throat.

Another scripted scene?

Mo Shigui turned back to Fureya, wanting to see if he could trigger any other quests, but there was nothing…

At that moment, all Mo Shigui could see was Fureya placing her hand over her chest, her face filled with concern, her lips tightly pursed, and she eventually took a deep breath as though to calm her emotions.

“Please return safely, kind Holy Spirit, and do not… use up the talisman’s charges,” she said.

Is that all?

Mo Shigui paused for a moment and glanced around, realizing that no main quest prompt had popped up, he asked,

“Is there anything else?”

Realizing she had said too much, Fureya covered her mouth and shook her head slightly. @@novelbin@@

Another performance? Or does this NPC have her own thoughts?

Mo Shigui no longer had the time to ponder over this, as he had many real-life obligations to attend to. Seeing that Fureya didn’t have anything more to say, he chose to log off.

However, Fureya’s words still lingered in Mo Shigui’s mind after logging off. He pondered for a moment and then sent a message to Zhao Mingwei.

‘What lines? When I completed the quest, the Guardian Spirit only told me to return safely.’

Zhao Mingwei replied to Mo Shigui in less than a minute.

‘I understand. It might be that I triggered some hidden dialogue.’ Mo Shigui could only convince himself this way, as the NPCs’ hidden dialogues in Holy Spirit were indeed too many. A seemingly unimportant NPC by the road could talk to a player for half an hour just with system preset dialogues.