First Steps as a Cultivator

This is a technical guide intended to ease players into the world of Tale of Immortal, that will try to explain as easy as possible all the mechanics the player will encounter from starting on the Tutorial to reaching the Mainland. This guide will use a good array of example images, but for the sake of clarification, any and all NPC's that are NOT part of Main/Story Events are randomized. There will also be spoilers for the Story the player will encounter during the Tutorial. For any further tips and/or guides into the game, look here, here, and here.

## Starting a New Game

### Difficulty Choosing

Before you decide on your character, you will be given the option to choose your difficulty. As a new starting player, your only choice will be Normal, but this image wishes to serve as a reference for the other possiblities. Some highlights of the difficulties:

1. On the first two difficulties, you will experience a timer after using a **Bagua Jade token** to revive in which your body will "reconstruct". You cannot engage in any kind of fighting during that time.
2. From Nightmare difficulty onwards, your save will be permanently deleted if you die; however, only in Nightmare difficulty you be allowed to keep reviving after reaching the Nascent Soul realm.
3. You can only keep reviving if you still have **Bagua Jade tokens**; if you run out of tokens even on Normal difficulty, you will lose the game and cannot continue any further.

### Character Customization

After choosing your Difficulty, you will be greeted by this next screen; in here you can customize your characters appearance, as well as its **Internal** and **External** traits. These traits are mostly unimpactful; you wont be locked out of Events due to them and while some Cultivators can approach you due to them for actions such as *Debate*, you can still answers in way opposite to them without much repercussion (aside from maybe disagreeing with the Cultivator in question). After you are done customizing your character, click on the top left corner the **Stats** button which will lead you to the next screen:

In this screen, you will have an example of the stats you shall begin with and the Destinies you can pick as boosts on the start. Bear in mind there are many **Destinies** that can only appear on this screen after being unlocked (those very ones can be seen on the Achievement screen that can be accessed on the main menu). You can click on the dice to randomize all 9 destinies as many times as you want. Some highlights of this menu:

1. **Martial Arts, Spiritual Roots** and **Artisanship** can be increased further while playing, with things such as Fruits for the first two, and Manuals for the later. Fruits are obtained by Events, Mythic Beasts and mainly buying from Sect Treasure Pavillions, while Manuals are obtained from killing the appropiate Beast that randomly appear in the world, such as Alchemy Deviated Qi cultivators for Alchemy manuals, and so on.
2. **ATK, DEF, Martial/Spiritual RES, CRIT, CRIT RES, Agility, CRIT DMG, CRIT DR, Vitality, Energy** and **Focus** can be increased by wearing Skills (mostly Mind) and their effects. **Lifespan** can be increased by Breakthrough into further *Realms*. **Mood, Health, Stamina, Luck, Insight** and **Charisma** CANNOT be further increased by means outside **Destinies**, **Fates** (destinies chosen while breaking into further realms), or temporary buffs. **Travel speed** fall into this latest category, but you can buy/obtain *Mounts* in-game that when equipped will increase it.
3. On the top right corner you have your inclination toward either **Righteous** or **Demonic**. Those dictate how you are viewed by other *Cultivators*, and can have an impact of your experience as part of a **Sect**; having a high value **Righteous** while being part of a **Demonic** Sect will have a % of your **Contribution Tokens** (the money you earn and can only use in your Sect) taken every month until the appropiate inclination of your Sect is higher than the other one. *Cultivators* of the opposite inclination will have a chance of engaging on fatal battle with you(unlike spars) at the end of each month.

After choosing your 3 **Initial Destinies**, you can start the game. You shall be in a loading screen with *Pangu* "generating the world", this should take 1-5min at most, but if for some reason it INSTANTLY loads, you might be experiencing a generation bug; please look into this page for a possible fix. You will have some brief "background" of how your Destinies came to be, and after some dialogue, you be presented with an **Old Man** sitting on a Go Board, which you can ask some questions. Exhausting all three leads to a fourth one, and after pressing it, you be shown this screen:

In here you will choose your **Relic**; bear in mind only the middle one, **Bagua Jade**, which serves for the purpose of reviving the player, can be chosen on the current version of the game. After choosing it, you shall be thrust into the game:

### Hands on the field

After finishing the dialogue, you be asked to enable or disable **Tips** that will pop up in the top left corner of the screen. You can interact with the Go Board for a lil tidbit. Going to the right prompts a dialogue, and the first enemies you encounter shall appear. After defeating them, step on the new portal to go into the next area, which in there you shall encounter a little interaction between a **Righteous** and a **Demonic** cultivator, before a Lightning Dragon knocks both of them down:

If you approach any of them, you are prompted to interact, which shall lead to four choices: ***Help, Kill, Observe*** and ***Let me think about it***. If you help them, regardless of your stat/inclination, you shall be gifted a **Sect Recommendation Letter** to the Sects they belong, which will allow easier initiation into them(if you so desire), while also gifting extra **Contributions Tokens** as reward for you saving the *Cultivator*. Killing them yields whatever loot they have at hand, and ***Observe*** leads you to a screen of their respective stats which you see when interacting with other Cultivators, letting you know about their stats, destinies, etc. Thinking about it simply prompts you out of the choices without doing anything. After saving/killing one or both of them, take the portal to the right and you shall exit into the World.

### Into the World (of the tutorial)

From left to right on the bottom left corner, you will find: **Mail menu, Mission Menu, Skills Menu, Item/Inventory Menu, Artisanship Menu, Region Map, Rewrite Destiny/Current Realm/Cultivation Menu,** as well as **the Skip Month** buttons. There are far too many things to explain of each menu, and while some are self-explanatory, the best this guide can advise is to explore them at will. After getting into the world, your Character will prompt you to get to the first town, and while walking towards it, a **Cave** shall appear to the side. Inside of it you will find a group of enemies protecting a chest, and after dispatching it, you shall receive x500 **Spirit Stones**, x1 **Sinking Stone ring**, and around 20 of each Vitality and Energy restoring elixirs. **Spirit stones** is the currency of this world, the **Ring** can be equipped to increase your inventory capacity and add extra security, which will make it harder for other Cultivators to steal from you, and the **elixir** are your "potions" you can use to heal Vitality and Energy during combat (in most encounters before engaging, you can also click the + sign next to their respective Bars if you are low to use Elixirs without consuming focus). Bear in mind using elixirs during combat consumes your **Focus**, and you CAN'T use elixirs without Focus.

After getting into the first town, you be prompted with a yellow ! on the **Tavern** to speak with the *Innkeeper* and ask for **Tian Yuan Mountain**'s location. You receive word that this zone is confined away from the mainland, and are given a prompt to go towards the nearby **Yukong Village**. Once you reach the village and some dialogue, you can inquire to the two villagers **Foolish Old Man** and **Wise Old Man** about the circumstances of the place. You be promptely sent to a nearby cave that has the first boss you will face: the **Jagu**.

Its almost impossible for the Player to defeat the **Jagu** on their first try, and the game's intention is that you *FAIL*. Once you drop to 50% of Max Health, the above dialogue will prompt and you will escape the battle with a debuff; **Heavily Wounded**, which will temporarily reduce your Max HP by around 30%. If you somehow manage to take around 1/4 of the **Jagu**'s HP, she will transform into a second phase, with harder patterns and a monster summoning ability. Even if you somehow have a way to defeat her at this stage, its recommended you purposely fail, or else a good chunk of the tutorial and a possible *Optional Story* quest and its reward would be forfeit.

Once you retreat, you shall be guided back to the *Town* to rest into the **Inn**, which will cost around 50 spirit stones and 5 days of in-game time (on your normal screen while on the world, in the **Skip Month** button, there shall be the **Year, Month** and **Day** reflected as of currently; you have 30 days of in-game time per month to act before needing to skip into the next month, so you can keep count on the **Day** counter to see how many days you have left of the current month). Resting on an **Inn/Hospital** will recover all your stats to max, including **Stamina** as well, while removing most **Debuffs** the player currently has. Finally rested, and some dialogue, a new Cultivation spot will appear nearby you:

Once on top of it, press the ***Cultivate*** button on the bottom right, and it will leave you right into the Bottleneck of your realm. You will now need a **Qi Refining Pill 1** to clear the Bottleneck and gain additional stats, that can either be bought from the **Market** on town or bought off from a random NPC event while roaming on the area.

Once obtained, go into your **Rewrite destiny** menu, press the flashing "***Breakthrough***", select the Pill, and after some animation, you will gain stats and be cleared to keep Cultivating/gaining cultivation points. Your character will prompt some dialogue to check the new building in Town, **Manual Pavilion**. You will have an assorment of 2-5 Martial, Spiritual and Special skills to choose from, which can be bought for little amount of stones. Make sure you meet the requiring stats to learn them, and once you have one of each, you will be prompted by the story to learn them both. To do so, go into your inventory, click on them, and choose **Learn** on the new screen. Beware that learning skills will always cost you a little chunk of Spirit Stones, half a month, and some Mood; you will need to complete a minigame as well to fulfill its **Progress** bar. Eventually, skills will require more than one minigame to be completed.

The in-game tutorial is very self-explanatory; left click the blue, right click the *red*. The higher your **Insight/Perception** stat is, more blue orbs will appear during the mini-game, making it easier to learn skills. You can hold your left click to pick orbs automatically once hover over, but beware of accidentally picking red orbs while doing so.

Once you learned and equipped your skills on the **Skill** menu, you are ready to face the **Jagu**; don't forget to equip your *Elixirs* into your hotbar on the inventory by dragging it on the slots under the "Combat" section to be able to use them during combat. Enter the cave, face the **Jagu** and defeat her.

Once you done so and with some dialogue, you be prompted to your first Story choice: ***Kill*** or ***Question*** the Jagu. In this guide the Jagu will be spared, which will prompt the player to receive a Book that can be read on the inventory for some clues on what to do next (the Story will prompt you directly to what you need to do without needing to read the book). For clarification, if you kill the Jagu, all the mountains keeping this place isolated will dissappear, and the Story quest will end there. Your next objective is to obtain the **Evergreen's Soul Orb.**

Entering the encounter zone and after a few areas of cleaning mobs, you be faced with the **Evergreen**; it has 3 attack patterns. They are straightforward, but its recommended the Player strafes to the sides to avoid the straight line attack and dont bother cleaning up his summons. Once defeated, you will obtain the required item and need to return to the Jagu's cave to give the materials. Done so and after some cutscenes, a *Portal* will appear next to Village, which will allow you to enter the **Mainland**. But before you do so:

### Tutorial's Side Story: Qingtian's Fort.

This side Story can be started after learning the required 2 skills during the tutorial, before you go and face the **Jagu** again. The dialogue that prompts the start of it will stay available as long as you havent killed the Jagu/taken the Portal into the Mainland. If you visit the first Town, the **Tavern** will have a blue ! as shown above. Clicking on it and the required dialogue will prompt the *Tavern Owner* to speak about the general tips for the Player to earn Spirit Stones, with additional dialogue explaining that a young miss has been kidnapped by nearby bandits, and rescuing her will surely earn a handsome reward. Go into their camp and the next dialogue will be prompted:

Picking negotiate will go into other choices, but even if you chosen to question the Bandits, you can still pick the option to fight them. Do so and after clearing a few mobs, you will encounter the boss **Bandit Deputy**. Once he is defeated, you will go through some options and land into the next screen:

In this guide, we shall pick the option to "***Tell him to continue***", in which he will proceed to request the player to send Spirit Stones to someone in Yukong Village, while also requesting the player to give the hairpin and a book to the young miss back in town. For the sake of earning the *Cultivation* reward, bury the bandits, give 800 spirit stones to the person in the village, and do NOT read the book while also returning both it and the hairpin to the girl on town. After doing all of that and skipping into the next month, you will be prompted to some dialogue and receive a **Legendary Martial book**:

And thats the end of the quest. Some things to clarify overall: the only guaranteed reward of this quest is the orange Legendary book, and the player has a chance to receive up to two additional **Mind** books (which I happened to receive 1 as shown above). Questioning the bandits and choosing not to fight them will abruptly end the quest. By not fulfilling all five virtues, such as not giving all 800 spirit stones to the family member, not burying the bandits, only returning the book to the young girl, or reading the book given by the **Deputy**, will have the player denied of the Legendary martial book.

And thats the end of this technical guide. It was initially intended to cover all the way into reaching the first cultivation *Realm*, but due to the extensive amount of information needed to be covered, it will only help the players up to this point.