[System Prompt: Special Mission "Apprenticeship" initiated. "Mixed Yuan Qi" Master Duan Yu seems to consider taking you as a disciple; however, to complete the apprenticeship, you must prove your "sincerity". Only after successful completion will you be accepted as a Direct Disciple under Master Duan Yu.]
Do you accept this mission? Yes/No.
Current Sincerity Value: 0/100.
Mission 1: Present a Mystic Gold Dragon Patterned Black Robe. Mission reward: Sincerity Value +30.
Special Note: Each player can only have one Master at the same time. Betraying your sect will result in a significant loss of reputation value, and may potentially turn you hostile with your sect. Please choose the sect you wish to join carefully.]
Xiao Jie carefully read over the system prompt, and was momentarily speechless, thinking to himself, "Go screw yourself, you really had to play hard to get, huh? If it were martial arts in exchange for clothing, he might have considered it. But this is just the first task, and there are still three more to do, which all seem not easy... What even is this?"
The last time I grinded reputation for a Worldly Expert, I didn’t even spend this much.
In fact, Advanced Internal Skills are already quite formidable; at least, those you could buy at the auction are few and far between, and they’re usually the more useless and middling ones. The really good stuff almost never gets put up for sale.
So the Mixed Element Skill still holds value, and is pretty decent among the high-level internal skills.
But since Xiao Jie learned Supreme Martial Arts, his standards had risen, and he felt somewhat disdainful towards "mere" high-level internal skills.
Moreover, each person can only take one master. If he were to take a master, he’d have to aim for a Saber Saint or Sword Saint, wouldn’t he? You’re only a level 30 Qi Gong Master, just a Second Order profession, not alluring at all.
With this in mind, Xiao Jie decisively refused.
"Sorry, I am determined to fight against demons and ghosts and restore peace and order to this world. This Mystic Gold Dragon Patterned Black Robe offers significant protection, and I need to rely on it for battling demons and spirits. Master Duan, I can only appreciate your goodwill in my heart."
"Hmph, be it as it may. It seems that we’re fated to meet but not destined to be. Go on, then."
Xiao Jie made a formal bow and then turned to leave, but he etched this encounter in his memory as a piece of intelligence.
If anyone in the future wants to learn Advanced Internal Skills, or wishes to become a disciple of Master Duan, he could sell them this information.
After bidding farewell to Master Duan, Xiao Jie wasn’t in a hurry to leave. Instead, he spent 10 taels of silver to learn Dual Weapon Specialization and only then did he truly conclude his training journey.
Xiao Jie had wanted to learn Dual Weapon Specialization for a long time, but he always lacked the time and money. Now, at last, he had accomplished it.
With this, he could employ dual-wielding combat skills like Helical Blade Dance.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, Xiao Jie arrived on time at the meeting room.
The meeting was well-attended – apart from their few small leaders, all core members were present in the meeting room.
Naturally, Hidden Dragon, Do Not Use should be the one to open the meeting with a speech.
Hidden Dragon, Do Not Use: Today our operation went rather smoothly, but some issues were revealed. Everyone, please speak up, and don’t hold back.
Once Hidden Dragon, Do Not Use gave his opening speech, everyone started chiming in with suggestions.
Little White Dragon: I think that everyone should practice remote weapons skills, aiming for a fully remote team. After all, this game doesn’t restrict professions from learning skills of other types, and melee professions can also learn remote skills – at most, they just don’t reach the top level, but it’s still possible to make some headway.
We’ve all seen that when it comes to fighting, the best way to achieve zero damage is to focus fire from a distance.
If everyone is remote, we can completely avoid melee engagement and kill monsters and level up without any risk.
Salted Fish: The idea is good, but not realistic. Remote weapons obviously have lower damage, and you need a sufficient number of people to unleash their power. It only works well when many are fighting against a few.
If we encounter an equal number of enemies, that approach falls apart.
When facing a large number of enemies, melee combat is unavoidable. If everyone focuses on improving remote weapons and our melee becomes weak, what then? The historical army with the highest proportion of remote weapons was the Da Song, with archers making up to 70%. How did that turn out? We all know the strength of Da Song’s army.
The two of them had logical points, and Xiao Jie thought to himself that neither of them was wrong; it really came down to perspective.
Little White Dragon commands the remote group and, of course, wants everyone to follow his lead.
Salted Fish, despite his laughter, also seemed to be a leader who had not entirely given up.
Only Dida La truly didn’t get involved, simply listening in.
Xiao Jie had no particular desire to speak up just yet; he decided to wait and see.
Hidden Dragon, Do Not Use: I think we can come to a compromise. When everyone has free time, try to improve your remote weapons ability. At least make sure to have remote offensive capability. That way, during activities, everyone can function as a remote unit when needed, but continue focusing on what they usually train.
Hidden Dragon, Do Not Use’s words were somewhat conciliatory, but Xiao Jie noticed that sometimes that’s exactly what’s necessary.
Xiao Jie thought it was time for him to chip in.
Hidden Moon Following Wind: I think we should make better use of qinggong. Today, the mountain bandit archers on the village wall caused quite some damage to the melee team. The melee team had to retreat several times as they charged in, and although I used my Big Move to kill all the archers on the village wall later, it still delayed the attack by several minutes.
If we can predict such situations in advance, and send a qinggong expert to jump onto the village wall and take out the mountain bandit archers in time, the assault from the main gate would go much smoother.