Chapter 144 - Basic Preparations
If Rhode only possessed one talent tree, then this wouldn’t be much of a problem. But he had to decide between two unique talent trees, thus, he was in a dilemma. His Summoning Master tree had [Soul Resonance lvl 3] and [Integration lvl 2]. Whereas for the Soul Messenger tree, it consisted of [Spirit Armor lvl 3] and [Shadow Follower lvl 3].
The Summoning Master’s second stage consisted of three skills, [Soul Hourglass], [Inner Gate] and [Forced Awakening].
[Soul Hourglass] could be used to increase the duration of summoned spirits by more than half, whereas [Inner Gate] could slightly boost the chances of summoning an additional summoned spirit whenever the player summoned one. [Forced Awakening] was Rhode’s favorite passive skill. It gives the player a certain chance for a defeated summoned spirit to revive with 100% HP. Thus, it saves the summoner’s spiritual energy. On the flip side, the chances were only merely up to 5%. Having such a low rate of success was understandable, if not, Rhode could keep reviving his self-exploding dog which would be too overpowered.
Next, there were four talents in the second stage of Soul Messenger. [Sacrificial Spirit], [Path of the King], [Infinite Sentiments], and [Heritage Seal]. Rhode had a hard time deciding on these four skills. [Sacrificial Spirit]’s effect was to sacrifice a summoned spirit and transfer its powers to another card. For example, if Rhode sacrificed his Black Hound and transferred its powers to the Star Mark Sword, then it’s offense 7 and defense 3 value will stack on Celia and her stats will instantly increase to offense 16 and defense 9. However, the downside to this skill was that it could only stack once and the duration wasn’t that long. Even if this skill was maxed out, it could only last for 5 seconds.
[Path of the King] and [Infinite Sentiments] represented the special characteristics of the Soul Messenger. [Path of the King] could decrease the amount of spiritual energy required to summon a summoned spirit up to one third. As for [Infinite Sentiments], it could expand Rhode’s spiritual energy. After activating [Infinite Sentiments], Rhode’s spiritual energy would increase by an additional 20% everytime he levels up. Although this increment couldn’t be compared to a mage, but wasn’t considered too bad as he was a swordsman.
[Heritage Seal] was used to fuse spirits. After activating this skill, it fuses two spirits into a new card, the new card will inherit skills of both sacrificed cards. The maximum inherited count would be three skills. In the beginning, the inheritance would be random, but once maxed out, players will be able to choose the remaining two skills.
The [Soul Hourglass] required 3 Skill Points. [Inner Gate] and [Forced Awakening] require 1 skill point each. [Sacrificial Spirit] and [Path of the King] required 3 Skill Points. And lastly [Infinite Sentiments] and [Heritage Seal] required 2 Skill Points. This meant that a total of 15 Skill Points would be required for both second stages of the talent trees. Currently, Rhode only had 9 Skill Points, and all these skills were really precious to him.
After shutting himself in his study room for the whole night, Rhode eventually made his decision.
Considering that he didn’t learn any suitable sword skills, he decided to focus all skill points on the talent trees. In the end, he maxed out [Soul Hourglass], [Forced Awakening], [Path of the King] and [Infinite Sentiments].
Thus, Rhode finally decided. He focused on maxing out skills that focused on PVE so as to achieve the best results within the shortest time, because he knew that the Mercenary Association had a rule — Once a mercenary group was able to receive 150 and above points within half a year, the Mercenary Association could make an exception to promote to a guild status even before the winter season.
150 points.
That required at least a group to embark on about 50 normal missions and 30 dangerous missions.
To those average mercenary groups that were only able to complete 2 to 3 normal missions within a month, this was indeed an insurmountable moat.
But as for players that treated missions as their livelihood, it wasn’t too difficult.
Of course, Rhode was very clear about the limitations since he was a player. He was already used to grinding mission after mission non-stop. But this doesn’t mean that the rest would be able to keep up him. So, in order to push his men to the maximum, Rhode borrowed his experience leading a guild in the game and quickly came up with a corresponding solution.