Getting Started Strategy and Planning#
🧭What this page offers is a sequence rather than the only answer: which decisions you should get right at the start, and which can be corrected in the middle stretch. Wherever exact numbers would be involved, nothing is guessed — only mechanics are discussed.
1. Set Three Rules at the Start#
The first time you enter the Sangora Valley, there are three things worth settling sooner rather than later.
| Rule | Reason |
|---|---|
| Spend your first skill points on the tree that works day and night | Skill points cannot be reset in this game, and a wrong investment means waiting for a second playthrough |
| Read skill manuals as soon as you pick them up | Unread, the matching node never lights up on the skill tree |
| Keep multiple manual saves | Autosaves overwrite each other, manual slots are your only room to roll back |
The same logic sits behind all three: growth and time are both irreversible here, so “spend on certainty first” always beats “spend on the single ability that looks strongest.”
2. 30 Days Is Not a Countdown, It Is a Number of Actions#
Hearing “30-day deadline” for the first time, many players assume they are racing a stopwatch. The opposite is true: time only advances when you take an action — standing still, rummaging through your pack or reading the map costs nothing.
| Assumption | Reality |
|---|---|
| Time is constantly draining | Only completing a quest or a specific action deducts time |
| Every step has to be timed | You can stop to plan routes and take stock of resources |
| Running out means failure | Running out does not end the game, but it affects your family |
So what you are really managing is the number of actions, not the number of minutes. Every “should I take this quest” judgment is essentially spending one of the few slots in a day.
2.1 Check the Cost Before You Commit#
Every action has a fixed time cost, marked in the interface with a small hourglass icon. Building the habit of “look at the hourglass before accepting” keeps you from accidentally burning half a day on something trivial.
3. Skill Points Can’t Be Reset, So Swordsmanship First#
There are three skill trees, and two of them are locked to a form.
| Skill tree | Active period | Main content |
|---|---|---|
| Witchcraft | Day only (human form) | Herbal remedies, astral communication, damage and control spells |
| Vampire | Night only (vampire form) | Shadow Step, traversal, shapeshifting and blood-based active abilities |
| Swordsmanship | Day and night | Blocking, counterattacks, weapon mastery, medium and heavy armor proficiency |
Because skill points cannot be reset, the safest early move is to build up Swordsmanship first — it works at every hour, so every point is spent at full efficiency. Witchcraft and Vampire each only pay off for half a day, so they belong to the phase after you have confirmed how you like to play.
Generic nodes labeled “any time” carry the same priority as Swordsmanship.
4. Day and Night Are Two Different Characters#
The day and night forms are not just a change of appearance, they decide which skills you can use and who you can deal with during that stretch of time.
| Time | Role | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Day | Human, can cast Witchcraft | If you can’t win, you can’t win — there is no blood drain sustain |
| Night | Vampire, can drain blood and traverse | Stay away from human settlements to avoid drawing trouble |
If you run a Witchcraft-based combo in daylight, it will not automatically become an equivalent Vampire setup at night — prepare one loadout for each.
5. Switching Day and Night Only Works at Shrines#
To change the time of day deliberately, you have to go to a shrine and choose to wait. That has a big effect on planning: you cannot swap forms anywhere and anytime, so “should this quest be done during the day or at night” is best settled before you set out.
Some merchants only trade during specific hours, and certain quest targets only appear during the day or at night; the map and journal flag this with a sun or moon icon.
6. Depravity: Think Before You Drain#
Draining blood at night restores health fast, but the more you drain, the higher your Depravity climbs.
| Impact | Notes |
|---|---|
| Upside | Unlocks more vampire-form abilities |
| Cost | Adds a large batch of evil-aligned dialogue and behavior options |
| Risk | When blood runs low at night, the drain instinct takes your choices away |
“Takes your choices away” means the dialogue options you would normally have get locked out and Coen lunges in uncontrollably. So if the story direction matters to you, top up your blood before heading out at night.
7. Pick Your Blood Sources#
| Target | Traits |
|---|---|
| Wild animals | Safe routine supply that affects no one |
| Enemy soldiers | Top up while fighting, the cost is manageable |
| Ordinary villagers | Restores health but raises Depravity, and may wreck later quest lines |
A starving Coen may kill an NPC you still need later. That is not scaremongering, it is the value of a small habit like “go take down two beasts before entering town.”
8. The Triangle of Time, Skills and Exploration#
The three pull against each other, and maxing them all out at once is close to impossible.
| What you want | What you pay |
|---|---|
| Fill out the skill tree | Needs heavy exploration to collect manuals and experience |
| Visit every landmark | Burns a lot of action slots and shrinks your main-thread budget |
| Push the main thread steadily | Progression runs slow and late-game fights get rough |
A steadier rhythm is: use Swordsmanship to secure your floor early, add a Witchcraft or Vampire specialty in the middle, then come back for side content and chests at the end.
9. Suggested Order for the First Two Weeks#
| Stage | Focus |
|---|---|
| Stage 1 | Read every manual you have, build up the Swordsmanship trunk |
| Stage 2 | Learn where the merchants in the Sangora Valley are and when they trade |
| Stage 3 | Decide whether you are a day build or a night build, then invest in it |
| Stage 4 | Leave room for the main-thread nodes concerning your family, don’t push them to the final days |
10. A Few Common Mistakes#
| Mistake | Correction |
|---|---|
| Hoarding skill points for the “optimal build” | Points cannot be reset, hoarding them means no progression |
| Using only one form the whole game | Half of the value of the two skill trees goes to waste |
| Treating the autosave as insurance | It overwrites, real insurance is multiple manual slots |
| Treating the deadline as a hard fail condition | Running out does not end the game, but the consequences land on the story |
Closing#
The whole plan comes down to one line: get the irreversible decisions right first. Skill points, time and Depravity are three lines you cannot walk back, and they happen to be the three lines that decide where the story ends. Sort those three out and you have room to polish the combat and exploration at your leisure.
—龙追日, Editor-in-Chief at NTGame