Build 26388163

Hello, fellow cultivators! This update focuses on legacy gem fixes, easier pill and talent management, and further improvements to startup, loading and combat stutter.

Gems & Equipment
- Fixed legacy gem migration when loading saves. Gems already socketed in equipment retain their original stats, including critical chance, critical damage and elemental damage bonuses.
- Legacy gems in your bag now stack by type and level. Socketed gems remain in their original sockets.
- Updated ten types of new gems, replacing stats that were not taking effect with working stats.
- Added gem badges to equipment slots in the bag and equipment pages, making socketed gear easier to identify.

Cultivation Pills, Talents & Recruitment
- Higher-realm characters can now use lower-tier cultivation pills. The base effect is halved for each major realm above the pill's tier, rounded down to a minimum of 1. Higher-tier pills still cannot be used by lower-realm characters.
- The Realm page defaults to the usable cultivation pill with the highest adjusted effect and shows its page when you open the panel or switch characters.
- Tier III elemental talents unlock according to the elements of the character's current main attack skills. Points already invested are retained.
- Arcana now requires one point in Tier II instead of Tier IV. You can switch options directly within single-choice talent tiers for free, without refunding the point first.
- Newly recruited companions match the protagonist's level and realm, starting with zero progress toward their next realm step. Existing companions are unchanged.
- Removed quantity caps on coins, spirit stones, ore, materials and gems.

Combat & Endless Challenges
- Improved boss deaths, loot processing and guardian battle settlement to reduce stutter from work being processed at once. We will continue improving combat performance.
- Added visual and audio feedback for boss defeats, multi-kills and loot. Some build synergies now display short trigger labels to help you see when they take effect.
- Corrected resistance scaling at the entrance to Endless challenges.
- Each Endless floor now has a 180-second time limit, counted from the start of that floor. This prevents healing stalemates from continuing indefinitely and fixes premature timeouts after advancing to another floor.
- Corrected coin rewards from commercial voyages in the Endless stage so they follow on from the previous stage.

Loading & Fixes
- Improved startup, the title screen and the response after selecting Continue, reducing stutter and waiting.
- Improved save recovery so an invalid record is less likely to discard other valid records in the same section. When map data needs rebuilding, the deployed party is restored from your roster.
- Fixed revived companions retaining outdated HP values after talents were changed during combat.
- Fixed newly recruited companions receiving names already used by companions in your roster.
- Fixed the Easeful Mastery Manual failing to respond to Study in the bag. Rejected manual loadout changes now show a reason.
- Fixed errors when switching languages in town or opening recruitment, and restored missing descriptions for some amulet sets.

Thank you for your feedback. We will keep fixing issues and improving combat performance and controls.