Beaver: Damn, sis, come and recruit! We got a sleeper here, just imagine if this guy is poached by some other guild, and we end up in a guild battle – I can already visualize getting tortured by Suffering without even beginning the fight; the image is like a muscle-bound dude charging at us with a box of gene seeds, forcing us to consume them, and no way to refuse; it’s terrifying.
Fierce Chicken: Holy moly, after seeing Brother Hei Ye’s True Damage Stream combo, I’m kinda scared. Group magic with Suffering True Damage, Meat Shield Flow AoE True Damage, just hearing these two schools of thought feels like a handful, I’d dub it the most disgusting Star Vein Combination of the current patch, recommend a summary execution on the spot, can’t let these two lucky bastards join other guilds, they’d be civil war gods, players’ most feared Suffering all in your hands, suggest devs ban these OP accounts.
Death Mage: I suggest sending them to the Reverse Tide Training Camp, duking it out with the War Gods, oh boy, a punch with Touch of Pain must be exquisitely agonizing, they’re sure to dominate the mess hall brawls, your generation is gonna be epic, can’t wait; I suggest checking with your brick-moving contacts to see if there’s a way in.
Divine King: Buddy, your private chat’s turned off, hit me up when you see this, consider joining the Divine Hall Guild, I promise you’ll be satisfied with the package, and when Darkness descends on reality, and I ascend the throne, I’ll crown you and your bro as great generals.
Xia Sheng’s forum post sparked a hot discussion.
After watching the video, players were envious of the True Damage effect paired with the Suffering Soul.
But only the person involved and Qi Sheng behind the scenes knew that this school of thought is not for everyone to play.
Asceticism’s outlining of the "Pain Imprint" Spiritual Patterns within the Sea of Consciousness has already been recorded by Guidance, and if he wished, he could certainly put the Suffering Soul up for sale in the Life Soul Library for other players to purchase and use.
But the problem is, the way the Suffering Soul gains growth experience is fundamentally different from other Life Souls.
Other Life Souls gain evolution points through Hunting, continuously enhancing the strength of the Life Soul, but the Suffering Soul only gains level experience by enduring pain.
To train this Life Soul to a High Level, one must embrace a future accompanied by Suffering.
Ordinary players can barely endure 10% of the pain feedback, let alone fostering growth through embedding the Suffering Soul, far less suitable than other Star Vein Combinations.
Moreover, since the Suffering Soul is not Source-originated, it cannot be directly replicated and cultivated through sacrificial power irrigation; the cost of crafting each Pain Imprint is simply unbearable for current players.
A combination of multiple factors is the reason he hasn’t opened the purchase channel for the Suffering Soul.
As dawn approached, the world by the seaside awoke from its slumber, and the night faded like diluted ink.
The changing sky cast down warm sunlight.
Xia Sheng and Jiang Cheng began their training under the guidance of the elderly ascetic.
The Ascetic believed their Spiritual Strength was too weak; they needed meditation to temper their Spiritual Strength.
And Spiritual Strength is key to unleashing Pain Tentacles.
The higher the Spiritual Strength, the further Pain Tentacles can extend, the longer one can maintain their release in combat.
Sitting cross-legged nearby, listening to the sound of waves hitting the shore, Jiang Cheng and Xia Sheng tried hard, their faces turning red, to enter the state of meditation described by the elder.
But they couldn’t quite grasp the essence.
"Let go of distracting thoughts, slow your breathing rhythm, and try to feel the natural environment."
The Ascetic’s hoarse voice resonated in the ears of Xia Sheng and Jiang Cheng.
After more attempts, Xia Sheng opened his eyes and looked at the Ascetic with a helpless expression:
"I can’t do it, it’s just not happening."
Hearing this, the Ascetic stepped forward and placed his palm on top of their skulls.
"Keep doing as I told you."
Upon hearing this, Xia Sheng closed his eyes again.
He could clearly feel the elder’s palm gradually heating up.
As his breathing steadied, Xia Sheng felt his consciousness sink deeper, as if passing through layers of fog.
Finally, his consciousness entered a strange world, woven with interlacing light and endless colors.
Each color represented a type of Energy – some as hot as fire, some as cold as frost, some as gentle as the wind, some as sharp as a sword – with different colored specks of light swirling around his consciousness.
At the command, Xia Sheng and Jiang Cheng immediately opened their eyes.
Instantly, they found the world had undergone a wondrous transformation; no longer was it the seaside scenery but a new world made of countless lines and specks of light.
"This is what the world’s structure looks like when Spiritual Perception is refined to the extreme, also known as the Meditation World. Each speck represents a natural Element, and the colorful lines woven across denote the principles governing the world. You can understand it as every colorful filament being a part of the world, with all world principles operating along the trajectories outlined by these lines."
"Now use your consciousness to envelop the drifting white specks and try to absorb them."
Under the guidance of the Ascetic, they began to capture the white specks with their consciousness.
With the continuous absorption, they vaguely sensed some changes in their Spiritual Strength.
After calling up the attribute panel and continuing to absorb for observation, they realized that for every 10 white specks absorbed from the air, they gained an attribute enhancement of 0.001 in Spiritual Strength.
This discovery left Jiang Cheng and Xia Sheng speechless.
The process of tempering Spiritual Strength was indeed novel, but the growth was excruciatingly slow.
They figured it might be faster to return to Imperial Tomb Village and have a good fight with Black Tide or the Insect Tide.