Hero’s Adventure: Road to Passion: Great Conquest (DLC 1) Guide

In the Great Conquest, you take control of a sect and aim to achieve supremacy over the entire Jianghu region (Land of Rivers and Lakes, or just ancient China)
As sect master, you will control how your disciples develop and how your Sect expands. Unlike other games like Civilization, there is no city/territory development. Instead you will be developing your combat units.

This game mode has 2 forms, Story mode and Contest. The basic premise is that you fell through a time hole/slip and ended up in the game world. Who you end up as, depends on your game mode.

In Story mode, you will take control of our usual protagonist Vinegar Shrimp. You will wake up where the base game begins, complete with the very first cat fight. However after getting to the Nameless Village, things diverge. You take control and fight the Blue Wind Camp and eventually the whole world. As Shrimp gets involved in the politics of the land, how will he fare? Will he unite the land under a single ruler, or keep the Martial Artists separate from the machinations of the court?

In Contest mode, you take control of a sect leader of your choice. You have less freedom in how the sect develops, but the array of Martial Arts and traits are far more tight-knit. The story here is that the martial world is in turmoil as the relics of the Great Nameless Hero has been uncovered. As sects fight for these relics, they vie to become the supreme sect and replace the old Peak sect that used to rule. As you defeat other sects, the secrets of the world and why things are so different from the base game will be revealed.

For starters, you exclusively play on the world map and smaller battle arenas. You will need to gather manuals, develop your sect and train your disciples.
Other changes include things like, your Max Level is 10, you can only have 4 Martial Arts and they only go up to level 4.
However the enemies also play under these rules.

This guide will cover the basics of this game mode and provide more information and advice.
For now only Story Mode will be covered as Contest Mode’s events are not personalized and acts more as a sandbox.

First things first. Character Creation!

The first screen you see when you start up Story mode. This is only your MC, your Sect Leader. The rest of your sect will come later.
You will recognize a lot of the elements on the screen here BUT things are quite different compared to the base game.

The max level is 10 here.

STR: Increases ATK. Every point gives (Level * 1.5 Atk)
CON: Increases HP. Every point gives (Level * 10 HP)
INT: Increases MP. Every point gives (Level * 3 MP)
DEX: Increase Action Speed (AS). Every point gives (Level * 0.1 AS)
LUK: Increases Critical. Every point gives (Level * 0.1 Critical)

The MC will always have a minimum of a 5 in each stat. There are equipment and traits that can raise these outside of character creation.
Your MC has the following Base stats at his minimum stat.
HP: 500
MP: 200
ATK: 65
DEF: 50
AS: 16
External Stats: 9 for your chosen Martial Art type, and 6 everything else.

Correct! The effects of stats have been downgraded significantly in this game mode. On the upside, this means you won’t quite steamroll the game by picking up 20 Str and 20 Con at the start of the game. It also means your MC won’t feel very different early game.

Gear and Martial Arts also give a huge amount of stats. So much in-fact that they will make up the majority of your Atk/Def/MP/HP

Weapons give (based on rarity)
Atk: 80/120/190/240
Armor gives
Def: 40/80/110/150
Accessories gives
Crit/Parry/Eva/Acc: 10/18/25/30/50 (Animal Ring)
AS: 5/8/12/15/20 (Animal Ring)

STR: 75 ATK or a 30% increase without a weapon. A 15% increase when using a Legendary Tier weapon
Con: 500 HP or a 36% increase without any Internals. 1 Legendary Tier Internal increases Max Hp by 400, and a Top Quality (Merged) manual gives 800. 1 Merged Legendary tier Manual increases Hp by 600. A 23% increase with a Top Quality Manual.
INT: 150 MP or a 30% increase without any Internals. 1 Legendary Tier Internal increases Max Mp by 800, and a Top Quality (Merged) manual gives 1600. 1 Merged Legendary tier Manual increases Hp by 1200. A 7% Increase with a Top Quality Manual
DEX: 5 AS or a 25% Increase with no accessories.
LUK: 5% Crit a 50% Increase with no accessories.

Simply put. None!
None of these Stats are worth investing your limited points into. There are no achievements in this game mode, so you will not have more points to spend in future games.
Out of the 5, Con and Dex are the only 2 stats worth raising with these Points. But even then, getting more traits is even better.

It takes 150 points to bring a stat up to 10. Its better to spend these points on traits.
For example: Take: Offense like a Rainbow, which gives +70 Atk for 50 Points
Just 5 less Atk at level 10, and about 50 more Atk at level 1 at the cost of 100 less points.
Then Atk Enhancement, which gives +40 Atk for 20 Points.
Then Atk Increase, which gives +50 Atk for 20 Points.
Then Cloud-Breaking Power, which gives +20 Atk per Str (base 100 ATK) for 50 Points.
With those 4 traits, you get 260 Atk at the price of 140 Points, compared to the 75 Str from getting 10 STR at level 10.

Nope! As you play through the game you will unlock traits you can assign to your characters. Each character besides the MC, will have 3 unchangeable base traits, and 100 Points to spend on any other trait.
As you earn traits, they will enter your trait bank, or trait inventory. Then you can assign a trait to a character. That character will have that trait until you take it off of them.
The most common source of traits is in your Sect Development Plan or from beating each floor in the Sky Breaker Tower Yearly event.
This includes traits that give +100 Atk or +5 to each stat.

Sweeper: Goal – Maximum Atk power. You want big AOEs, like Blade

• 100 Enemy Chasing or Rapid Response or Preeminent
• 50 Damage Enhancement
• 50 Cloud-breaking Power
• 50 Offense like a Rainbow
• 50 Light as a Feather
• 20 Attack Increase
• 20 Attack Enhancement
• 20 Quick Reflex
• 20 Quick Step
• 20 Damage Increase

Why is the Sweeper good? By picking all the Atk and AS traits, you will have more ATK and AS than your helper at the start of the game. At level 1 you will have as much as a level 6/10 character.

Tank: Goal – Survive. You’ll want Sword Martial Arts which has early Regen moves.

• 100 Immune Side Attack
• 50 Vigorous
• 50 Steel Bones
• 50 Divine Flame Protection
• 50 Armor Blessing – Replace with Immune Back Attack for full tankiness
• 50 Strong Body and Muscles – See above
• 50 Fast Response
• 20 Hp Enhancement
• 20 Defence Enhancement
• 20 Hp Increase
• 20 Iron Body
• 20 Atk Increase

Why is the Tank good? By taking all the Def traits, you will start the game with 190 Def. This is only 20 points less than your helper who starts with an Epic armor. And you can take it and be invincible. With a Recovery Martial Art, you are invincible.

Speedy Boi: Goal: Be fast as possible. Be able to kill people too.

• 100 Critical Damage
• 100 Rapid Response
• 50 Blitz Attack
• 50 Offense like a rainbow
• 50 Cloud-breaking Power
• 50 Light as a Feather
• 20 Quick Step
• 20 Quick Reflex
• 20 Attack Enhancement
• 20 Attack Increase

Why is the Speedy Boi good? Its just nice having 3 turns to the enemy’s 1 Action. Its just as strong as it is in the Base Game.

Crit Master: Goal – 100% Crit. You will be using the Crit Accessory (10/18/25/30/50) and rely on other Manuals to fill in the gap. Some examples given.

• 100 Critical Critical (assuming you stay at 50% Hp) +25%
• 100 Critical Damage or Enemy Chasing
• 50 Critical Enhancement +10%
• 20 Critical Increase +5%
• 20 Quick step
• 20 Quick reflex
• 20 Attack enhancement
• 20 Attack increase

Other Notes:
Your manuals (Legendary):

• Internal: Heaven Sutra +20% Crit on attack
• Internal: Flame Toad Technique: +10%
• External: Cloud Piercing Finger: +20% on attack

Why is the Crit Master good? Crit is stated to double the damage, but from experience, it does way more than that. I suspect that Critical hits also ignore Def.

Name (Original Sect): Effect
Rating/10 and observations

Defender’s Heart (Divine Flame Sect): -30% Enemy Atk when you have the Resolute Status.
5/10. You will need to use a Fist Manual to get Resolute. Synergizes with the Divine Flame Sect’s Martial Arts. Resolute is also called Resilient.

Spirit of Steel (): +5% Parry for every 10% Hp lost.
6/10. This is not great on its own, but makes it easier to get 100% Parry.

Windwalker (): Move again after attacking, but you cannot attack again.
8/10. This is pretty good if you can get an Internal with a regeneration effect. Which you do, you get Reckless Sky right after beating the Blue Wind Camp.

Preeminent (): Enemies within 3 squares gain -20% Def. Does not stack with itself.
3/10. Defense reduction is less important since no one has very much Defense.

Cooperative Defense (): Allies within 3 squares gain +15% Evasion. Does not stack with itself.
4/10. Great with Evasion builds, but does not affect yourself. Best used if you recruit the Melody House girls

Melting Gold and Hiding Blade (): The External Origin Staff will have 100% chance to inflict Unconscious instead of 50%
2/10. Unconscious is better than Slumber, but you need to buy Origin Staff from the Mysterious Merchant for 5k Coins and it does not work with combined versions of Origin Staff.

Lost in Dreams (): The External Insanity Staff will have 100% chance to inflict Slumber instead of 50%
3/10. You can pick Insanity Staff during Sect Creation. However, most enemies will die by the time Insanity Staff is off cooldown, or will die to Insanity Staff.

Sword Increases Damage (Langya): +10% Damage for every 5 Sword points.
1/10. You will have 9 Sword points at most. At the end of the game you can get a True Animal Ring to increase it by 9 for a whole 30% extra damage. You will want to take the 20 Point Sword Increase for another +5 Sword (and +10 Increase) Still too expensive and there are better accessories than the +Sword,Blade,Fist ring.

Critical Critical (): +5% Critical for every 10% Missing Hp
8/10. Critical Chance is great in general. This will help get 100% Crit but be careful about the fluctuation and don’t play too dangerous.

Immune to Control (): Immune to special Status Effects like Vulnerable, Cut Tendon, Unconscious, Slumber, etc
1/10. These status effects are only present on Epic tier Externals. You will run into them so rarely, that you don’t really need to counter them. You’re likely to beat the enemy before they can fire off more than 1 Epic tier skill.

Immune to Side Attack (): In-game effect is incorrect. Actual effect is: Side attacks are treated as frontal attacks.
8/10. This makes enemies lose bonuses from the Side Attack effect like extra damage, or extra Crit chance. Great if you want to make your MC a tank. Also amazing for early game’s wild animal fights.

Immune to Back Attack (): Effect is incorrect. Actual effect is: Back attacks are treated as frontal attacks.
7/10 This makes enemies lose bonuses from the Back Attack effect like extra damage, or extra Crit chance. Great if you want to be a tank.

Beast Taming Technique (Beast Manor): For each animal on your side, +5% Atk (Up to +50%)
4/10. A potentially powerful effect, but you will need to either buy the Epic Tier Beast Howl Manual to summon an animal. Each character can only summon up to 2 animals, so your whole team will need to have it. Better after you recruit one of the Beast Manor characters.

Beast Taming Ability (Beast Manor): For each animal on your side, +5% Parry (Up to +50%)
2/10. A potentially powerful effect, but you will need to either buy the Epic Tier Beast Howl Manual to summon an animal. Each character can only summon up to 2 animals, so your whole team will need to have it. Better after you recruit one of the Beast Manor characters. Enemies are more likely to attack your Pets so you won’t get to use the extra parry for very long.

Immune Barrier (Herbology Sect): 50% to ignore the negative effects of an external when attacked.
5/10. Useful when you’re fighting enemies that can reduce Atk/Def but the 50% chance hurts the viability of this.

Mark Counter (Jiujiang): When you have less than 50% HP and are attacked by an enemy with the Blade (AKA Knife/Sword), Dagger or Fan Mark debuff, that enemy gets -30% Atk
4/10. You have to buy a manual with the X Mark effect and you need to be at 50% HP or less. You’re probably going to be able to take 1 more hit with this trait in that scenario. The debuff lasts the whole battle, so this can come in handy.

Mark Increase Roll (Jiujiang): When you have 50+% HP, gain +50% Damage when enemy has any Blade (AKA Knife/Sword), Dagger or Fan Mark debuff
8/10. This one is far better. If you have a fast character who can apply this debuff for you, you can get huge damage out of it. You still need to buy a manual from the Mysterious Merchant though. The debuff lasts the entire battle

Follower’s Path (Divine Fire Sect): When adjacent to an enemy, take 70% of the damage and share 30% of it to nearby enemies.
9/10. Damage Share is great but not as impactful as the base game. More valuable on higher difficulties. Enemies will stand next to you to attack so you’ll get great use out of it.

Martial Arts Disruption (Cold Skin Gang): Enemy Cooldowns +1. Does not stack with itself.
6/10. This can be useful, however it’s better on another character.

Rapid Response (): +10 Action Speed
10/10. Action Speed is always great. A bit expensive but better than raising Dex. Most enemies won’t have more than 40 AS.

Insightful Eye (Tiger Escort): +100% Damage Dealt against Male enemies
10/10. A majority of enemies in this game are male. This is also the reason why the Taoist Sect tends to get crushed by the Tiger Escort in most games.

Continuous Assault (): 50% Chance to act again after attacking with an External.
5/10. It’s the lesser of the 2 extra turn traits. Useful in spamming your basic Blue External to charge your better ones, but not necessary.

Survival in Despair (): Revive with 20% Hp and Mp, once per battle.
9/10. It’s a worse version of the CIB’s stuff, but the AI can’t handle revives as well. You can also use it as a free 20%. This allows you to throw bodies at a sect until it crumbles. After all, you always have 20% HP but the enemies will get stuck at 1% eventually since you’re almost guaranteed to get 1 hit off.

Wall of Steel (): Negates the first attack against you
5/10. Nice to have if you’re a glass cannon. But its better as a pick up from the Sky Breaker Tower than a starter

Damage Reflect: Reflect 20% of the damage taken
9/10. Ironically better when you have less defense. Works great with an all HP and no Def build (Which is easy to run anyway).

Survival in Adversity (): Gain +2 AS for every 10% Missing HP
6/10. Expensive but fairly strong. You can get 2-18 Action Speed. You can probably get away with staying at 20% HP but even with +16 AS, you’re not going to get more than an extra attack or 2 off. Pair with Enemy Chasing for a low hp sweeper build.

Enemy Chasing (Taoist): After killing an enemy, get a 2nd turn.
10/10. Simple, Clean, Reliable.. Great snowballing trait. Leave a weaker minion alive (or weaken them) and get a 2nd action every single turn.

Critical Damage (): 50% chance to get +100% Damage
8/10. A very powerful trait. Most enemies will not survive this and a regular Critical hit.

Instant Death (9 Factions): 20% to inflict Instant Death against enemies 2 levels lower than yourself.
0/10. Every single boss enemy, garrison unit, and wild animal will be level 10. All that’s left are the generic common enemies, and even they will reach level 10 eventually.

These are your bread and butter. The cost efficient traits. The flat bonuses. Get these, as much as you can.
Name: Effect
Rating. Observations

Blitz Attack: +4 Action Speed
9/10. Simple cost effective increase. Cheap and great. Same value as increasing Dex by 4 points at level 10. Light as a Feather is better though if you can only pick 1.

Vigorous: +350 HP
8/10. Simple cost effective increase. Same value as 3.5 Con at level 10. Not as cost effective as taking the 2 Blue HP traits though. Still a good trait on its own (Better with all 3)

Steel Bones: +70 Def
10/10. Simple cost effective increase. Very valuable as only Armor increases Def.

Offense like a Rainbow: +70 Atk
9/10. Simple cost effective increase. Cheap and great. Just about the same value as increasing Str by 5 points at level 10.

Combo Enhancement: +10% Combo
5/10. Combo doesn’t really have any Externals or Internals that allow for a Combo heavy build. You can still build around it with these traits and accessories.

Precision: -10% enemy Parry when attacking
7/10. Only Shifa Temple has a lot of Parry. Most enemies won’t have more than 10% so this trait will negate that.

Sword Intent: Entering a battle with a Sword equipped increases your Atk based on the tier. 3/6/9/12% respectively.
8/10. It won’t work with the omni-weapon you receive at the start, but you can get a good sword fairly early if you beat Langya, or buy one from a level 2 Equipment Merchant. You better use Sword Martial Arts if you take this trait.

Damage Enhancement: +30% Damage Dealt
10/10. Cheap and simple.

MP Enhancement: +300 MP
7/10. It’s more MP than 10 Points of Int, but Internals give so much MP, its not needed. Great for early game before you get good Internals though.

Critical Enhancement: +10% Critical
10/10. Cheap and simple. Critical is very powerful in this game mode. Give as much Crit as 10 more points of Luck. Needed to reach 100% Critical

Parry Enhancement: +10% Parry
10/10. Cheap and simple. Parry is not as powerful as Crit but it’s still good . Give as much Parry as 10 more points of Luck

Side Attack Break: -10% Enemy Evasion and Parry on Side Attack
2/10. Evasion and Parry is not much of an issue.

Back Attack Break: -10% Enemy Evasion and Parry on Back Attack
2/10. Evasion and Parry is not much of an issue.

Shadow-like Body: Gain +1 AS for every 10% Missing HP
4/10. Its 1-9 Action Speed. It’s not worth being near death for 9 AS.

Animal Hunter: +50% Damage to Animals
7/10. If you have spare points, this trait will skyrocket your early game but is useless later on. Your MC will be too busy to do training excursions later on as he has events only he can do.

Emergency Self-rescue: While HP < 50%, recover 50 HP Per Action
1/10: Not too great as the healing is too low and activates too late. There are better healing options.

Self-healing when Hit: Recover 100 HP when you Parry or Evade
6/10: A decent healing option if you’re going for 100% Parry.

Damage Enhancement (2): +2% Damage Dealt per STR.
5/10. Yes it has the same name. This is +10-20% Damage on average and 40% at most. You’ll be able to get +10 to all stats with an accessory so it can be decent late.

Interlocking: +50 Damage for each additional enemy in attack range
5/10. The increase is low, but its useful for a specific late game enemy (Can summon 20 more enemies). Better suited for attacking sects than defending them.

Polearm Defense: +15% Parry against Spear and Staff users
2/10. Spear and Staff users aren’t super common. You can get 100% Parry without this. You won’t fight Spear or Staff users very often as those sects are often kept in check by their neighbors.

Flute Critical: +15% Critical when attacking with a Flute
2/10. Flute is kind of weak in general. But if you want to use a Flute, this becomes a 10/10 trait.

Divine Flame Protection: -15% Enemy Atk when adjacent
10/10. Enemies almost always stick next to you to attack. They won’t move away if you run up and stick to them either. Extremely powerful. Best when paired with the Divine Fire Sect’s Internal

Evasion Enhancement: +10% Eva
7/10. You can’t reach 100% Evasion, but it’s still a fine trait.

Aura Disruption: Enemies start at -50 Energy instead of 0 after acting
0/10. The decrease is very low. That is -50 on a bar that goes from -500 to 1000. You won’t notice the effect

MP Conversion: -50% MP Cost
1/10. Only useful in the early-mid game, when you have Epic Externals but no Internals. Once you get merged Internals, you’ll be drowning in MP.

Enemy Recovery: Recover 20 Hp when you hit an enemy
1/10. Way too low. You can use an External like Mortal Sword and get 100 HP per hit instead if you want this style of healing. You get 20 Hp per enemy hit, so it can be useful on large AOE attacks but still not that great. You can heal for 100-200 with Internals after every action.

Tactical Strategies: Your Initial Cooldowns -1
0/10. Not very useful for 1 reason: Merged Martial Arts start at 0 Cooldown. Otherwise, this would be an 8/10 since you can buy -2 Initial Cooldown in your Sect Planning to get the same effect. Will update if Merged Martial Arts get nerfed to start on cooldown.

Armor Blessing: +30% Def from your Armor
8/10. You’re looking at 12/24/33/45 Extra Def from your armor. Still a +30% increase in your Defense regardless. There aren’t many ways to increase your Def, so take what you can get.

Strong Body and Muscles: +25 Hp per point of Con
6/10. About a 125-250 HP increase on average. Can go up to +500 HP if you get the 2 +5 Stat increase things. Worse than the other HP increases.

Clear Mind and Few Desires: +50% against Female enemies
3/10. Female enemies are not a problem, outside of Han Hongyu in the early game. She won’t attack you very often but fighting her with the MC can be a huge pain. This trait will mitigate her power, but it’s better to just attack her later on instead.

Brave Charge: Start battles with 200 Energy
2/10: Going first may be powerful but early on, it will only hamper you as you get surrounded. This is better used as a Sect Trait rather than the MC’s personal trait.

Fast Response: +100 Energy when attacked.
7/10. Amazing for a Tank MC. Less useful the more AS you have, but it’s a good trait in general.

Light as a Feather: +1 AS for each point of Dex
10/10. Actually really good since Dex gives 1 AS at level 10. You’ll get 5-10 AS and can get up to 20 AS. The most cost effective AS trait.

Weapon Blessing: +30% Atk from your weapon
7/10. You’re looking at a 24/36/57/72 Atk Increase. Still better than increasing Str though.

Cloud-breaking Power: +20 Atk per point of Str
10/10. The single largest flat Atk trait in the game. A +100-200 Atk bonus on average and with the 2 +5 Stat trait/Ring, you get +400 Atk at the end game. A must pick trait. For reference one of the Legendary Traits from beating the Sky Breaker Tower is a flat +100 Atk.

Ruthless Hand: +50% Damage against Female Enemies
5/10. Not super great, but can be useful in the early game. Its better to pick universal bonuses though. There are far more powerful male enemies than female ones.

Another set of cost effective traits. I recommend picking up 5 of these. Otherwise you’ll have 10 or so points left over. They are cheap and give quite a nice boost.

Quick Step: +2 Action Speed
10/10. The 2nd most cost effective trait.

Hp Enhancement: +200 HP
10/10. A cost effective HP trait. Together with HP Increase, are the most cost efficient increases to HP.

Defense Enhancement: +40 Def
8/10. It’s a Def boost, nothing more to say. Take it if you have extra points

Attack Enhancement: +40 Atk
8/10. Still way better than increasing Atk. Take it if you have extra points and already picked Attack Increase

Parry Increase: +5% Parry
9/10. Cheap and cost effective. Needed for 100% Parry.

Attack Increase: +50 Atk
10/10: Why is there a better Attack Enhancement? No idea, but this one is a no brainer. Take it. Super cost effective.

Sword Increase: +5 Sword
7/10. Paradoxically, this is better on a Non-Sword MC. This will give you 11 Sword Points which lets you use Sword Manuals on top of your Chosen weapon and allows your MC to fuse legendary Sword Manuals with your main type. Not strictly needed since there are plenty of 8+ Int characters to handle that.

Quick Reflex: +2 AS
10/10. Same as Quick Step. Take it.

Evasion Increase: +5% Evasion
7/10. Cheap and cost effective.Take if you have nothing else. You can’t reach 100% Evade, but you can get pretty high.

Critical Increase: +5 Critical
9/10. Cheap and cost effective. Needed for 100% Critical.

Hp Increase: +200 Hp
10/10. A cost effective HP trait. Together with HP Enhancement, are the most cost efficient increases to HP.

Hardened: +1 Con
7/10. Cheaper than 1 point of Con. Take this if you are also taking Strong Body and Muscles.

Iron Body: +30 Def
7/10. Worse than Def Enhancement, but still a cheap Def increase.

Shadow Follows Shape: +1 Dex
3/10. The 1 Dex is the same as +1 AS at level 10. Get the other 2 AS increases instead.

Light Body: +1 Movement Range
5/10. Sometimes useful, sometimes not. There simply isn’t enough room to kite. Not enough to get around enemies either. Only take if you’re going to be running the God Step Internal and want to try kitting.

Stalwart: +1 Str
1/10. Simply not needed. Take any of the traits that increase Atk instead.

Damage Increase: +10% Damage
5/10. Pretty low, but if you have points to spare, take it.

Due to your sect’s starting location, you are right next to a bunch of Sword and Blade users. As such you will have access to quite a few free ones. The rest you will need to purchase from the Mysterious Merchant, which costs points to unlock and costs 5k Coins per manual.

Sword has the advantage of Qu Wangyou being an early recruit who can reliably Comprehend (Merge) Sword manuals for you (She also comes with one too). So with her you can snow ball out of control and take out Langya for their stuff as well.

Blade has the advantage of your first enemy being the Blue Wind Camp. Their Leader Kong Yidao will always buy a Legendary Blade weapon, so you can take it off of him (If you spare and recruit him) and run around with a Legendary weapon before you can remotely afford to buy one.

Fist: Single target. You won’t get any early Fist Martial Arts. The closest ones are the Taoist Sect and they aren’t easy to kill early on. Late game Fist moves are great. Super great for Tank builds later on, or whenever you push into the Divine Flame Sect territory.

Sword: A great early game pick, falls off a bit late. Their AOE size hinders them late game. Enemies will not line up properly unless you have +3 Movement to position yourself. You will also be destroying the Herbology Sect early on and get their Sword Arts. These are great since they have flat and % missing recover (its % missing per hit, so 5 enemies hit at once is a 60% Missing Hp heal). Langya is also on the early chopping block and can get you great stuff.

Blade: A great pick throughout the whole game. Your first enemy is the Blue Wind Camp. Its leader Kong Yidao will ALWAYS buy a Legendary Blade. So defeat him, spare him, then do his event and you can recruit him. You can take his Blade and kick him out if you want. You also get his Internal Reckless Sky which is an AMAZING Internal for the early game. If you follow Kang’s orders, you will also attack the Jiujiang Water Fortress early on.This will net you another Legendary Blade External. Ripe for the merging. Getting a Top Quality (Red) Blade Manual can carry you through the entire game. The AOE will hit almost everyone once you level it up.

Dagger: Not great. Daggers still have their bad AOE from the base game. You simply can’t get any good Dagger stuff for a long time. There are plenty of Legendary tier Dagger manuals however. Which makes them good Merge Fodder, especially the random event one.

Fan: Bad early. Luckily you can befriend the Confucius Temple and get a Fan from a random event. Its easy to befriend them since you will most likely fight the Swallows Nest or Jiujiang with them. As long as you don’t attack the Taoists first, the Confucius Temple is likely to like you. Afterwards you will want to kill the Confucius Temple for their stuff as well as Jiujiang. There are only 2 legendary Fan moves in this mode.

Brush: Bad early, decent mid. Your first free brush move will come after you beat the Herbology Sect and recruit Qu Wangyou. Then you’ll have to capture the Longevity Tomb to proceed. You will want to kill the Confucius Temple for their stuff since they have the only Brush legendary in this game mode.

Staff: They are decent mid and late. They revolve around inflicting special status effects here. You’ll want to kill the Tomb Raider sect and Shifa Temple

Spear: Kinda bad. The Ye Family Battalion has the most, then Jiuli and Beast Manor each have one. They are likely to kill each other, and Ye Family Battalion is unlikely to beat the Tiger Escort. They also have wildly different archetypes too. Check Conquest Mode and see which one you like the best and go for them. They are all kind of gimmicky though.

Flute: Ok early, great late. They only shine with the Flute Critical trait. With that, its very easy to snowball even if you don’t really pick up any Flute manuals outside the store. You will want to beat the Taoist Sect or Tiger Escort as soon as you can. Once you get to the God of Marriage Shrine you will get an event to recruit Yu Wei’er. She has 12 Int and comes with her own Flute manual. Jiuli has one, and they are likely to die to the Beast Manor, so Caidie will be available eventually without any work.

Lute: Bad. Only the Melody House has Lute skills, aside from the random challenger event. Not great on the MC.

Zither: The only Zither is at the Confucius Temple. Why? Ya Qin I guess. Not that great on the MC, Confucius Temple is so far away so you are not likely to get any free manuals.

Once you create and name your MC (Default name is Vinegar Shrimp), you will be thrust right into the opening.

The opening will ways be the same and always be the same difficulty since difficultly selection comes after.

You now have the choice between the Masked Girl and the Constable:

The Masked Girl: Hua Qingqing. She is a speed focused character. Sadly she uses Daggers so she will not be too useful once you catch up in levels. Siding with her also gets you the Cloud Step Internal for free later on.

The Constable: Luo Qianxue. She is a slow but heavy hitter. She uses Swords and can carry you for a while. Sadly she’s too slow to keep up in the mid-late game without some speed traits. Siding with her also gets you the Pure Yang Skill for free later on

It doesn’t matter if you win or lose. Qingqing cannot solo Qianxue without a lucky Critical. You’re likely to get 1 shot if you didn’t go for a Tank build.

You have to win this battle. Your helper can basically solo this battle. Just rely on them.
Winning this will send you into the Sect Creation screen.

Each Difficulty gives you a different amount of points to spend on this screen, changes how much damage the enemies do, and how many resources they gain.

Easy: 800 Points, -50% Enemy Damage Dealt, and enemy Resource gain
Normal: 500 Points base rates
Hard: 400 Points, +50% Enemy Damage Dealt, and enemy Resource gain
Nightmare: 300 Points, +100% Enemy Damage Dealt, and enemy Resource gain
If you’re not used to this type of game, go ahead and choose Normal.
If you follow my advice, you can probably take on Nightmare on your first try.

You have access to 3 chumps. They may add more if they decide to include the same achievement system from the Base Game. But for now, these 3 guys are all you got. And like their base game counterpart, they aren’t very good.
On Nightmare, you won’t have any points to spare on these guys.
Pack Dating is also your Garrison Disciple, so you’ll see plenty of him later on.

Pack Dating

Bai Touweng

Liu Shiba

Each plan has a series of upgrades you can purchase. Higher cost Plans have better upgrades. Never stick with Basic as you will have more resources than you can spend later on.

Here is the top 4 upgrade rows of the Basic Plan.

Here are the top 4 upgrade rows of the General Plan

The Manual Battle upgrade is offscreen on the General Plan.
The General Plan has further upgrades over the basic plan. In-fact never pick the basic plan.

Note: When I say Tier 2, that means its called that column 2. So Basic Resource Tier 2 is the one called Basic Resource 2.

Plan Specific Traits
Speed: Quick Reflex -> Light Body -> Light as a Feather -> Fast Response -> Rapid Response -> Survival in Adversity
Attack: Damage Boost -> Attack Boost -> Weapon Blessing -> Damage Enhancement -> Critical Damage -> Enemy Chasing
Defense: Iron Body -> Hardened -> Armor Blessing -> Emergency Self-rescue -> Back From the Brink -> Follower’s Path

Externals
Omnipotent Hand: +10% Crit when attacking, applies Crown on enemy (-500 HP on 3rd stack)
TaiChi Sword: +10% Damage Dealt, and gain +100 Energy (Turn Points)
Empty Blade: +20% Def Pierce
Power Star Spear: 50% chance to inflict Out of Control (Guaranteed Critical when attacks, cannot control)
Insanity Staff: 50% to inflict Slumber (Guaranteed Crit when attacked, wakes up when attacked, lasts for up to 2 actions)
Thunderstorm Strike (dagger): +20% Def Pierce
Carefree Life (Fan): +50 Atk when attacking, applies Scar on enemy (-75 Def at 3 stacks, lasts 3 actions)
Partridge Day (Flute): For each enemy attacked, each enemy loses 20 Energy
Dancing Butterfly over Skyline (Zither): When attacking 1 enemy: -150 Energy. This effect is split between all enemies hit.
Autumn Palace Moon (Lute): Reduce enemy Energy by 50-80, and inflict Lock-On (Stuns at 3 stacks)

Internals
Forging Golden Body: +5% Parry. Reflect 5% of the damage back
Great Ocean Manual: Each attack gains +10% Damage, up to 50%
Cloud Walker Step: +3 Movement Range
Pure Yang Skill: +5% Attack per attack. Lasts until end of combat

Recommendation: 100 Points.

You want to start off with enough points to buy Garrison Disciple and Enhanced Garrison Disciple immediately.

Now that you are in the game proper, you will have received 3 items.
Equip them all on your helper (Your MC will not see combat for a bit).

You now have 3 months until you are attacked by the Blue Wind Camp.

Your first actions should be:
Strike Out: Send the MC to attack Mang Mountain South. The center of the map are the uncontrolled regions. Mang Mountain South is a free spot that either the Taoist Sect or Herbology Sect will send troops to on the next turn.
Planning: Buy Basic Resource 1. Its not much but its practically free.
Event: Send your helper on the only event available: Out for Experience.

Out for Experience has good chance of getting you into a fight with Wild Animals. Beating these animals will give you consumable EXP books and Meditation Boxes. That means doing the Out for Experience event gets you more Meditation Points than using the Meditation action.
Rank D gives you 100 Meditation Points, Rank C 200, Rank B 300 and Rank A 500.
Overall, Rank B is often times easier than Rank C as the Rank C Bears are strong.
If you’re having trouble beating the battle, try hiding here, to force the animals to attack you one at a time.

Our goal is to amass 300 Meditation Points before the Blue Wind Camp Strikes. Garrison Disciples will be able to fend them off for the foreseeable future, and act as free exp and resources.

Once you buy the Garrison Disciples, your defense is set. You can take your time with the rest of the game. No sect can beat them once upgraded to 3.

Back at the sect, use the Item button and consume the Meditation Box(es) you earned. You only need to beat 1 fight, but 2 will let you get Enhance Garrison Disciple 1.
You should also get Healing Effect Enhanced 1 too.
Now you can end your turn.

Spend all your EXP scrolls on your MC. Move the special Epic gear from your helper to the MC.
Promote your Helper to Inner Disciple too. This will let her earn exp again. The cap for Outer Disciples is 6.
Heal both your MC and your Helper and go to the next turn.

Have your MC Grasp your Initial Manual. You can have your helper do the same or heal her again if she needs it.

You should send both the MC and your helper to the new event. Kong Yidao will not have his fancy Legendary Tier weapon in this fight. Your Helper can solo this fight, but try letting Shrimp fight.

Now you can take your time and play how you want. I recommend taking both the MC and your Helper to the Out for Experience event until they both reach level 7 or 8. Its better to have too much Meditation Points than it is to have too little.

Once you defeat the Blue Wind Camp, you will get the option to Spare Kong Yidao or kill him. Spare him then do his recruitment event.
This will give you access to Kong Yidao, his Legendary Blade Weapon, and his Internal Reckless Sky.
Reckless Sky is an AMAZING Internal. +15% of your Missing HP is huge. I personally took this Manual to the end of my Nightmare game by Merging it with the Pure Yang Skill.

Your next target is the Herbology Sect. By defeating them and having 5k Herbs, Qu Wangyou will join you. She is a great canditate to Merge/Comprehend Manuals for you.

You will also get the option to follow Duke Kang’s route or the Vagabond Route. Duke Kang will reward you with A LOT of resources so follow his route and agree to his whims. This will also lead to a good ending if you follow him all the way.

More Specifics pending.
To Be continued.

You get this upgrade as soon as possible. At Enhancement 2, they can beat off any Mid-game Sect on their own. At Enhancement 3, they can beat Late Game Sects.
They are so powerful, as long as you constantly Supply them or get the Guard Recovery Upgrade, you can safely turtle forever.

The Out for Experience event provides far more Meditation Points than using the Meditation Action even with 10 Int Disciples.

Out for Experience has good chance of getting you into a fight with Wild Animals. Beating these animals will give you consumable EXP books and Meditation Boxes. That means doing the Out for Experience event gets you more Meditation Points than using the Meditation action.
Rank D gives you 100 Meditation Points and exp in scrolls., Rank C 200, Rank B 300 and Rank A 500.
Each rank has a harder enemy that also increase the exp dropped by another 100.
Overall, Rank B is often times easier than Rank C as the Rank C Bears are strong.
Rank B has easy Boars and occasionally Tigers. Rank C always has Bears which are a strong as Tigers.
If you’re having trouble beating the battle, try hiding here, to force the animals to attack you one at a time.

Use Comprehension whenever possible. Merged Externals always start on 0 Cooldown and can be used immediately. They also have the power of their components combined.
Internals also give as much HP and MP as their components.
You will 100% want to save before using Comprehension and make sure the combined Manual has all the effects.

Comprehension in general
A character can Comprehend any 2 manuals that they can use. So Qu Wangyou can comprehend any Sword, Short and Long Martial Art
Any character can Comprehend Internals.

A Merged Manual always has the combined stats of both manuals.
So the Max Power of a Legendary External is 400, but 1 merged Legendary made from 2 epics has a Max Power of 445.
Merged Internals are always the combine value of their components.
A Legendary gives 800 Mp and 400 Hp, while a merged Legendary gives 1200 Mp and 600 Hp