Monsters Are Coming
Chapter 172 - 101 Meditation World_3

Chapter 172: Chapter 101 Meditation World_3

The increase in Spiritual Strength brought about by rising Life Soul Levels is far greater than that brought by cultivation; it’s simply putting the cart before the horse to waste time cultivating here.

Yet, thinking of the expectation evident in Asceticism’s eyes when he looked at them, they continued to cultivate with patience.

After a long time, Asceticism spoke again:

"Now I’ll take you to the Sea of Consciousness."

With his words, an invisible force attracted their consciousness towards their brow’s center.

Passing through the flesh, what appeared before their eyes was a world of dazzling colors, with a pond below filled with golden liquid.

"This is your Spiritual Sea. Each time you consume a spiritual energy particle, the capacity of the Sea will expand. Whenever you use spiritual power to release magic, energy will be withdrawn from the Sea."

"The process of tempering Spiritual Strength is to continuously expand the capacity of the Golden Ocean. The greater the capacity, the stronger the strength and the more spiritual power it can contain, the faster the recovery rate of spiritual power."

The perspective of consciousness shifted again, returning to the outside world.

A new round of cultivation began.

During this period, Xia Sheng asked Asceticism what would happen if he absorbed the colorful Elemental Particles wandering around him.

Asceticism’s explanation was that absorbing Elemental Particles would not enhance the strength of the Sea of Consciousness but would gather an Element Seed above it.

For example, by consistently absorbing the fire-red Fire Element Seed and reaching a certain amount, a Fire Element Seed would form above the Sea. This seed could help him control the natural Fire Element.

The stronger the Fire Element Seed, the faster the accumulation of Fire Element Energy when releasing abilities, and the greater the power upon release.

The same applies to other Element Seeds.

Spiritual power is the energy consumed by the Fire Element Seed to communicate with the outside world.

Xia Sheng’s understanding was that the Fire Element Seed is like a phone that can only dial fire elements.

The stronger the seed, the more expensive the phone, the better the signal, making the communication more convenient.

The Spiritual Energy in the Spirit Pool is like the phone credit needed when gathering Fire Element through a call; the more fire elements he summons, the more phone credit is spent.

Without spiritual power, the phone is out of credit, unable to establish contact with the external Fire Element, and thus unable to release Fire Element abilities.

But there’s one aspect in this system that Xia Sheng finds quite inefficient.

The speed of gathering Fire Element depends on the strength of the Fire Element Seed.

As players, they don’t have this concern at all.

With Bone Fire Form, they can condense an Ink Flame Fireball with a simple hand gesture, without the cumbersome need to go through a Fire Element Seed to connect to Fire Element Energy.

The process is indeed cumbersome.

Conjuring a fireball requires several steps.

Players just have a thought and rub their hands to create a fireball - simple and efficient.

However, Xia Sheng didn’t state this thought out loud, obediently following Asceticism’s orders to begin training.

During this period, Asceticism also mentioned a shortcut to forging Spiritual Strength.

He suggested that consciousness could be turned into a large net to rapidly absorb external spiritual energy particles, rather than swallowing them slowly one by one.

However, this requires an extreme control over one’s consciousness.

Asceticism explained meticulously, but to Xia Sheng, it still didn’t seem as beneficial as heading out to Imperial Tomb Village to engage in passionate battles against Insect Tides and Evil Spirits.

It seems that the speed of spiritual cultivation and growth in this world is not fast, or perhaps the cultivation methods Asceticism has mastered are too weak, not even close to the player’s inherent cheats.

Following Asceticism’s method of cultivation, strength increase would be aptly described as glacially slow.

But NPCs also have shortcuts to rapid growth, which is by consuming spiritual resources.

Just like Asceticism who has Energy Baryte as well as various Spirit Plants at hand; these resources can be converted into strength.

The difference with players is that Asceticism consumes resources slowly, needing to pair his cultivation with the gradual absorption of resources into strength.

Players, on the other hand, can immediately convert consumed Spirit Plants into Body Refining Experience.

Such an increase in experience also leads to growth in attributes like Spiritual Strength and Physical Fitness.

Viewed from the perspective of native life in the game, their growth is akin to cheating.

But there are exceptions.

There are two similarly cheating forces in his hometown, Imperial Tomb Village; one grows by devouring and the other by fighting.

They could be called the "twin hacks" of Newbie Village.

This is something he finds incomprehensible.

From his many years of gaming experience, Imperial Tomb Village should be an area for new players to transition into early growth, aimed at acquainting players with game mechanics.

As players advance in levels, Newbie Village’s difficulty quickly becomes inadequate compared to the players’ growth rate, necessitating exploration in other regions.

However, Moon Eclipse Clan’s "Dark Land" has a completely different philosophy in Newbie Village’s design.

The difficulty of Newbie Village can be described as torturous.

With Black Tide and Insect Tide as two opposing forces, their strength steadily increases, and the Player Faction has struggled for so long, managing to secure only three Domain Nodes and yet to fully annihilate these two forces.

In contrast, the recently opened region, Colorful Mist Coast, does not have monsters that change in strength over time.

Rather, they change so minimally that it’s negligible.

There won’t be situations like Imperial Tomb Village where players wake up to find that the level of Evil Spirits and Insect Tide has risen after a night’s sleep.

Comparing the two regions, despite higher monster strength in Colorful Mist Coast, it feels more like a Newbie Village.

Especially for newbies entering the game later, Colorful Mist Coast is evidently more conducive to growth.

Even if they can’t defeat powerful monsters in the jungle, killing crabs on the beach or catching small fish without Hunting Levels could still earn them evolution points to raise the Life Soul Level.

As for Imperial Tomb Village, with Black Tide and Insect Tide as two cheating growth obstacles, it becomes increasingly unsuitable for newbies.

In the future, a level 1 newbie might face level 50 Black Tide Demonic Spirits or level 50 Insect Warriors, not even on the same level.

Of course, there’s also a possibility.

Perhaps before long, they could defeat Insect Tide and Black Tide and embark on broader world exploration, and the newbies wouldn’t have to worry about the threats from Insect Tide and Black Tide.

After a flurry of disorganized thoughts, Xia Sheng began to look forward to the potion refining phase after cultivation.

Free Body Refining Experience was simply too tempting.

At this rate, their strength would quickly set them apart from the majority.

Lately, many guild administrators or leaders have privately contacted him, looking to invite them into their guilds.

But this was a matter he temporarily did not consider.

At least until the completion of training with Asceticism, he wouldn’t consider joining any guild and wouldn’t be able to participate in guild-organized team fights.

Thinking of the generous offers made by the large guilds, a naive smile spread across Xia Sheng’s face.

They say games can change lives, and he really did it.

Snap!

A palm, carrying the wind, sharply hit Xia Sheng’s back of the head, startling him.

"Slacking off again!"

"I’m sorry, Old Deng, I’ll work hard right now."