I have been brushing Xiadie’s relics.
At first, I had a purpose.
Later, I was not so sure.
There is a mechanism in the game called “relics”. If you don’t know it, it is a kind of equipment that can significantly enhance the character’s attributes. Each character can wear up to six pieces. And each relic contains four attributes: one main and three secondary. The main attribute is random within a certain range, and the secondary attribute is completely random. What’s more suffocating is that every time you strengthen a relic, it will randomly add a value in the secondary attribute. This system is based on the probability of layers of nesting dolls, and every upgrade is like rolling dice with your eyes blindfolded. You are clearly playing a game, but it feels like gambling your life in an underground casino.
Xiadie is a character who remembers her fate. The relic she needs tends to have high damage increase and critical hit rate/critical hit damage, as well as quantum attribute bonus and effect hit. It looks clear and not complicated. But when you really start to brush, you will find that this “clarity” is just a sweet treat handed to you by the probability designer. It doesn’t really want you to achieve it.
In order to brush her set “Wasteland of Thieves” + “Mask of the Void”, I have to challenge those constant copies repeatedly every day: trapped in narrow maps and repeated enemies, like a prisoner who can never escape. Sometimes I suspect that it is not to provide me with choices, but to force me to get used to a rhythm: no matter what I do, the result is uncontrollable. People will indulge in this rhythm because it is too much like reality.
I made a plan for myself. Every day, I consume full physical strength to play the relic copy without wasting any resources. The plan was executed well until one day, I suddenly stopped after completing a day’s task-looking at a lot of “semi-finished products” in the bag: those with misplaced entries, wrong growth direction, crit rate but insufficient pace, and main entries are just right but the secondary entries are all defense.
At that moment, I didn’t know why I was still brushing. I even forgot who I was brushing for.
“Oh, yes, it’s Xiadie.”
I reopened her character panel. She stood there, motionless, with her back to the galaxy.
I suddenly thought of something: I had never really spoken to her. She was just worshipped like a specimen, and I was like a cleaner in a museum, wiping her glass display case day after day.
Strengthening a relic is the last humiliation in this system. You found a good relic and strengthened it with cautious hope. +3, OK. +6, added the wrong attribute. +9, still wrong. +12, the critical damage finally increased a little, but not enough to save it. +15, all wrong, and the money was gone.
I once dreamed that I became a relic. The attributes were all over my body, and others checked it over and over again. Someone said to me: “Your main attribute is good, but the secondary attributes are not good, and you have wasted it.”
I woke up cold, my phone was still on the Star Dome Railway, and my stamina was full again.
For a while, I started to calculate the “average number of times it takes to swipe a top-quality relic”, and then I looked at how others used scientific modeling to analyze the drop rate. I tried to use logic to understand this system, but ended up falling into a deeper sense of powerlessness: all probabilities are valid in theory, but equal to nothingness in practice. If you swipe a hundred times and don’t get what you want, you can only say that you are “unlucky”. There is no compensation mechanism in the game, it assumes that you will continue.
So I continued. Like a donkey being led, with a carrot hanging in front of it that you will never eat.
I remembered a friend once said: “The way you swipe relic is like some kind of religious ritual.”
I said: “Maybe I am worshipping an invisible god.”
He said: “But you don’t even remember the name of the god.”
I was silent. He was right. I don’t even remember how many constellations the butterfly has been upgraded to, what level the light cone is, I only remember how many times I swipe in the dungeon, and which relic I deleted after failing to upgrade to level 15, and my fingers shook when I deleted it.
The game designer may know. They know we will enjoy this ascetic pursuit of perfection. Perfection is unattainable, so it is worth pursuing. You have a reason to keep playing because you keep failing.
So I am still brushing the relic. For Xiadie, and for myself.
Or, we are all just waiting for the next second of the entry to shine.
Until then, we must continue – even if we don’t know why.