Hi everyone, Merry Christmas!
Welcome to slack back and read another week's developer's diary.

This week, the majority of the development is still on the Floor of Religion.
Two boss fights were added and the story progressed.

Let's first cover the optional Boss, the Killer Monk.
Buddhist monks are usually kind and peaceful people, respecting all life forms. In a sense, many of them seek to reduce the pain of the world while helping people to reach a better place in their religious beliefs.
However, there is one particular monk. Once he was devoted to this cause, traveling around the world trying to spread Buddhism to fill the hearts of the world with kindness. Until one day, he realized a twisted belief in meditation.

If good people can go to paradise after death, why not just kill them and help them leave this world full of pain as soon as possible? In contrast, wicked people will fall into hell if they do evil in the world, so why not kill them as soon as possible to prevent them from committing greater sins? In any case, maybe killing all the people in the world is the right way. So, in a flash, the former kind-hearted monk has become a murderous killer. And everything is just for the distorted righteous way in his heart.


Such is the story of the Killer Monk. You can find more details about him on the game's wiki.
Is he evil? At least, he does not think so himself. What he does is to help people and the world, so much as he believes. He will take all the sins to help people to get to a happier afterlife as soon as possible or at least prevent a sinner from sinking even deeper in their sins.

He has his own battle mechanics under his twisted faith, an optional challenge to anyone who wants to face a different kind of enemy. As a reward, you may get a sutra that details his distorted belief to unlock a new faith tenet:

You can incorporate it into your own faith system should you wish to do so.
Ironically, that allows you to do the same thing to this monk as the monk did to many others.

The other boss fight is even weirder. It's a sloth demon.
As it is a demon of sloth you may find him not quite aggressive or even want to fight you.
You may find him literally not doing anything at all during the fight.
However, when the battle goes on, you may find yourself slowly losing until you lose all your will to fight and fall victim to eternal sleep. Essentially, this may be considered a DPS test. So, you may want to bring some heavy damage dealers with big guns or devastating magics. (Bring some coffee for additional protection. That's serious. :D )
More details of this boss fight can also be found on the game's wiki.
A certain demon of your own may also provide you with some hints.

Behind the sloth demon, there is a room at the center of this floor. There is where the story continues.
Your investigation to find out how the attack on the library begins and who is the traitor of the library may find some clues there.

Of course, there is also another item that is required to progress the main story unless you want the staring contest to last forever.

Some other small changes of this week include the enhanced effect of Holy Water when using them to cook food and the fatigue effect. Those can be found in this week's update logs every day.

The game shall now automatically get into Christmas mode just like last year if your local system time is correct. You shall be able to get this year's Christmas hat the same way as the last year. Christmas trees and other festival-related items shall appear in the inventory of various merchants. It's another fruitful year, and we will certainly continue our journey in the next, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Oh, when talking about sickness, Shanghai is currently having a huge Covid-19 outbreak right now. Many people fall sick while I remain quite healthy. Una joked about a stubborn person will never get infected (a modified version of a Japanese saying "馬鹿は風邪を引かない") If that's true, I guess I am immune. But, I am spending some time helping people in need as I am equipped with full sets of protective gear. (If you have been with us long enough, you know I have that stupid photo from many many months ago during the Shanghai Lockdown. :P) Thus, the update speed is affected.

That's for this week. We will have one more developer's diary before we reach the brave new year of 2023 when the game will be 19 years old in July. :)


Today's changelog:
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[The Grand Library]The door to the room at the center of the Floor of Religion now only opens after the staring contest starts to avoid breaking the storyline.
[The Grand Library]Removed the blockage at the center room on the Floor of Religion.
[The Grand Library]Added a new character in the center room on the Floor of Religion with some dialog options so that you can conduct your investigation. (Solutions to the dilemma of this character are still working in progress.)