Hi hi hi, I’m still alive and still plodding away at Immortal Life. After the bitter experience I had with Xenoblade Chronicles X, I decided I wouldn’t rush to finish any game this year but would keep playing for as long as it continued to be fun. Except Immortal Life almost decided to not be fun by introducing a long and tedious grind to get from the Initial Stage to the Middle Stage of Foundation Establishment.

I was given a mission to defeat the Soulslayer Whale, and I found myself doing scratch damage to the mobs in the stage. Meanwhile I was about 70,000 EXP from breaking through to the Middle Stage… and each monster was giving 40-60 EXP, so you do the math. Over 1,000 monsters just to get to the next level. I almost quit. Almost. It was this close, but I hung in there. The path of cultivation is never easy, after all.

The saving grace of this game is the lack of time limits, and the fact that you don’t need to eat or sleep so you can basically grind forever as long as you have enough mana and health elixirs. There are also grind-friendly stages with lots of concentrated enemies in most stages to make the process faster. But as far as I’m concerned, the fact that a farming game has “grind-friendly” stages is not a good thing… except Immortal Life never claimed to be a farming game? Did it? I can’t remember, so I’m a bit conflicted.

Anyway, I made it through. For anyone who’s played a Dragon Quest game or two, this level of grind isn’t even worth mentioning. Plus when I finally tackled the boss after breaking through and leveling a bit, he really wasn’t that tough. In retrospect I could maaaybe have taken him with clever kiting and items without bothering to break through first. But the enemies in Bright Moon Pass, the next stage, are also super tanky, so it’s just as well that I leveled up.

I’m still enjoying the quiet farming life in my little hovel, the grind is annoying but it’s always fun to get stronger, and even though my relationships with fellow sect members has improved, they’re still keeping a respectful distance and not bugging me when I’m busy. This is the (immortal) life! Most importantly there’s nothing else I’m rather be playing (even Epic Seven‘s 8th anniversary is disappointing) so I’ll be immersing myself in Immortal Life for a while longer. I haven’t even made it to the third year’s Winter like I said I would last time, so I’ve got a long way to go!