PART III) The Great White North?
Leaving the Tian’s place, I head a bit to the north and northeast. After all, I need to go find Hu Fei the flying fox somewhere far off to the Northeast, right? Well, before long I come across an odd-looking place. Turns out it’s the “Fu Wei Caravan Guard Agency”!
Whitey: That’s odd, this is such a big caravan guard agency compound, so why is there no one here?
Well, no people means no one to stop me from looting these suckas. I find a map of some place I don’t know anything about yet, some other stuff, and a manual on using
jian (double-edged swords)!
Prowling about, I come across this young lad, practicing his sword on a giant acupuncture dummy.
I ask him why the agency is not in business today, and this Lin kid gets all huffy. Looks like I’ll have to teach this punk a lesson!
WHITEY is not a very tough customer right now, so he decides to avail himself of these nice Divine Black Blood Needles. A couple of these and the punk goes down like Prince to Alphabet Street.
Little Lin tells me a sob story about how the Qingcheng sect killed his mother and his father’s disciples, and kidnapped his father. He tells me that if I can help him get his father back, he’ll let me have whatever I want in his home, including a sword manual. The sword manual I already looted! Haw haw.
A bit more wandering takes me to Hengshang, where the Hengshan sect is preparing a party of some kind. Turns out that their sect leader is going to take part in a “hand washing in the golden bowl” ceremony, meaning he will retire from being an active martial artist in order to live the rest of his days out peacefully without people dropping in to challenge or assassinate him. Whatever, I can’t get in without an invitation.
Actually I think I can fight the guards and force my way in, but what's the point if I don't know WTF is going on?
A bit more wandering to the north brings me to Iron Palm Mountain. This is the domain of the Iron Palm Sect [“Tee hee, nice flag guys, I bet your palms are really hard and calloused, aren’t they? Keep up the training guys!”]
For some reason WHITEY recognizes that these people are a bunch of dorks, and immediately insults the gate lackeys, calling their style “monkey paw” style or something, instead exploiting the more obvious masturbation jokes. A bit of martial arts novel humor for you.
Anyway, we are forced to kick their ass.
Luckily Tian Boguang is there to help out. The punks get their asses handed to them readily; though really Tian does most of the work, Whitey manages to get a couple of “baseball fist” punches in there. And he heals himself once or twice. At the end of the battle, level up for Whitey! Also, he learned that sword style from the manual he stole from. To bad my
jian skill sucks so much. I’d rather learn other stuff, even though the sword style is actually pretty cool.
The Iron Palm wankers don’t have much to say to me at this point.
I head on up to the main hall. The old geezer in the chair there is the sect leader. I decide not to talk to him and get my ass kicked. (OK, I know from a previous save that he will destroy me, because he can hit for 300hp or so in a single strike. And if I talk to him I am force to fight him!) Rather, I just get to looting, since no one seems inclined to stop me.
A manual for Iron Palm kungfu! Soon the secrets of the Iron Palm will be mine! If I practice long and hard, that is.
Whitey equips the manual and begins to learn the style. Each time he gains experience points, more points go towards learning the style. As you can see in the bottom left of this status screen, right now he has 0/150 points towards learning it.
I come across another mountain, Mt. Emei. As I head into the building, I listen in on a demented old nun lecturing the other nuns about the need to exterminate a sect of “devil worshippers” or something. Anyway, when she finishes Whitey mouths off to her for a bit, then leaves (after determining there is nothing to look there). Whatever…
Finally, another inn. The signpost says “Gao Sheng Inn, known far and wide. Celebrating our one-year anniversary. Now arranging “self-service” travel to Mt. Wuliang, speak to the inn attendant if interested.”
It’s my homey Wei Xiaobao! What’s in the sack, bro?
He’s got the “Raging Lightning Sabre”, and the “Secret Handbook on the Five Poisons”. Money changes hands, triple fist-bumb handshake, and these are now MINE!
The sabre is an object that someone can equip to improve their damage with sabre techniques; I give it to Tian Boguang of course, since I haven’t had a chance to learn any sabre techniques yet.
However, I am interested in learning from that poison book. Turns out that I can equip it. Sweet! Whitey is good at poisoning and medical treatment, so he’s going to beef up his stats if he can level this up.
In the inn I come across this dork sitting at a table in the corner. He tells me that he ran away from home because his father was forcing him to learn martial arts, and he prefers to study Buddhism and the Confucian classics. Dork.
NO DAMMIT I DON’T WANT THIS DORK IN MY PARTY!
Next I speak with the Inn attendant about that “self service travel”. Turns out that paying for this simply causes him to tell me some compass coordinates where I can find a cave in Mt. Wuliang. When I complain, he threatens to report me to the “National Trade Association of Inn Attendants”, and Whitey backs down like a puss. Hilarious!
I visit the cave…
Nothing in there right now except a room with a Go table and a ratty old bed. Guess this quest has not been “activated” yet.
A bit more wandering takes place. I visit briefly a bunch of tents out in the grasslands that are the home of the “Constellation Sect”, but nothing happens there but some dumb jokes. There’s nothing to loot, so I move on and eventually arrive at this place, another inn.
There’s a monk here named Xu Zhu (Hollow Bamboo). He tells me that he got lost while travelling with his master and fellow monks from the Shaolin Temple. Shaolin Temple!? I’ve got to get this guy in my party, right? Well, no. He’s kind of a dork. He tells me that he says a mantra before taking a drink of water, because the Buddha could see thousands of “bugs” in each cup of water, and he does not want to harm life. Dork. Stay away from me. (I suppose at some point I’ll need to hold his hand and take him back home, whatever…)
Some random dudes are here talking about the “Ming Sect” (Zoroastrians? The cult that the founder of the Ming dynasty belonged to?) and how it was very powerful, until it’s leader disappeared recently. This means nothing to me since I haven’t read the books; I’m sure it will be significant later on.
Some yapping between me and the Inn Attendant takes place. He tells me that this region is kind of dangerous or something. Sounds good to me.
A bit more wandering brings me to this place. Cool pagoda bros! Let’s have a look.
“Big Wheel Temple”
Lamas! Surly, rude Lamas no less. Surly, rude lamas looking for a beatdown!
These lamas aren’t all that tough, it turns out. With Tian’s help, I managed to take them out.
What’s this? Whitey just manufactured some “Yang Replenishing Five Dragon Paste”? Turns out that when you study a medical manual like this, you start to produce various kinds of medicine as you improve in the disciple and level it up. Since Whitey is learning from a manual about poison he produces poison curing medicine. In order for this to happen, certain other conditions have to be met; for instance, here Whitey needs to have a certain amount of “raw medicinal materials” in his inventory, and a certain level in curing poison or whatever. Cool! Still haven’t fully studied the discipline yet though…
The lama fools just keep on steppin. More asskicking takes place… Whitey levels up, makes more “Yang Replenishing Five Dragon Paste”.
We find a key which opens a jail that the lamas were guarding. This fellow is Di Yun. He tells me a sob story about how he travelled with his shifu and sister-disciple to visit his shifu’s brother-disciple (his “shifu-uncle”, are you getting all of this down?!). His shifu’s brother-disciple (the “shifu-uncle”, pay attention!) murders his shifu, and Di Yun is framed for it some how. He goes to jail, where he meets some other guy who teaches him a powerful kind of kungfu. They escape; the guy from jail is poisoned by someone; Di Yun learns his girlfriend (his “sister-discple”; they’re not really related so it’s not as gross as it sounds) married the evil shifu-uncle who murdered his shifu, and is bewildered as to how this could have happened. He also gives me some coordinates of a mountain cave near his hometown. Cool story, bro. Want to join my party? Nope! He considers himself too unlucky, and doesn’t want to ruin my shit as well. Yeah right, sounds like a lame excuse to me; probably I’m not “virtuous” enough for him. Ptah!
NEXT UPDATE: Male Model Beatdown in the Snow!
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. Alot of the mechanics you explained I didn't even realise existed haha, and it's interesting to actually know how they work now!
