Enlightened Ji

"Ji decided to read the hexagrams one last time and learned he did not need to hold back."

A mod that makes Ji harder by increasing health, attack sequence length, move variety, and speed. The goal was to make the boss fight around as hard as unmodded Normal Eigong.

Installation

• Can use a mod manager of your choice or manual installation.
• For mod manager, no extra steps required
• For manual installation, in addition to placing the dll file appropriately, the zip file includes 'EnlightenedJiBundle'
  • Move 'EnlightenedJiBundle' to the AppData folder of NineSols
    • Ex: Users\XXX\Data\LocalLow\RedCandleGames\NineSols
  • Incorrect placement will result in a normal-colored Ji
• More info on modding is on the Nine Sols Wiki Page on Modding.

Changes

General

• Phase 1 HP increased to 6500
• Phase 2 HP increased to 10750
• Animation speed increased by 20% generally. All further speed increases are in addition to this 20% increase.
• Included attacks originally only available in phase 2 into phase 1
• Minimized time Ji is vulnerable to attack
• Disabled hurt interrupt except during divination
• Increased Ji's speed of deploying altars (Health, Lasers, Black Holes)
• Every attack sequence now ends with a "sneak attack" that may be an accelerated sword attack, laser altar, black hole, or crimson attack
• Modified Ji's sprite to a darker color theme, inspired by Ji Fanart by MOMONIAW
• Changed crimson attack color to golden

BepinEx Configuration Manager

• Allows you to modify different parts of the mod
• All modifications require a retry to fully take effect

General Options

• Disables/Enables changes to HP, attack sequence, speed, and sprite color

Speed Options

• Must have enabled speed changes
• Modify the base speed at which Ji's attacks occur

HP Options

• Must have enabled HP changes
• Modify Ji's health at phase 1
• Modify the ratio used to calculate Ji's phase 2 HP (Phase 1 HP * ratio)

Color Options

• Must have enabled color changes
• Modify keyboard shortcut to reload material and shaders used to modify colors
• Modify the colors based on RGB value

Phase 1

• Changed boss title from Ji to Enlightened Ji
• All attack sequences end with 2 crimson attacks and a sneak attack
• Chance for blizzard attack, certain sword attacks, and crimson attacks to be accelerated
• Small chance for any attack to be accelerated
• Accelerated big black hole attack
• Accelerated hard laser altar attack

Sword Attack Sequence

• Modified to now be 4 flying sword attacks

Altar Attack Sequence

• Modified to now be a easy laser altar, small black hole, easy laser altar again, and a sword attack

Small Black Hole Attack Sequence

• Modified to now be a small black hole, easy laser altar, blizzard, and a sword attack

Blizzard Attack Sequence

• Modified to now be an easy laser altar, blizzard, a sword attack, and a blizzard again

Phase 2

• Changed boss title from Ji to The Kunlun Immortal
• All attack sequences end with a hard laser altar, 3 crimson attacks, and a sneak attack
• Increased chance for blizzard attack, specific sword attacks, and crimson attacks to be accelerated
• Increased chance for any attack to be accelerated
• Accelerated big black hole attack
• Accelerated hard laser altar attack

Opening

• Modified to be a sequence of 17 attacks that is every common combo usually experienced during phase 2
• Getting through this means you can probably get through phase 2

Sword Attack Sequence

• Modified to now be 4 flying sword attacks

Altar Attack Sequence

• Modified to now be a hard laser altar, blizzard, and 2 long sword attacks

Small Black Hole Attack Sequence

• Modified now to be a small black hole, long sword attack, hard laser altar, and blizzard
• This attack sequence contains probably the hardest of the common combos

Blizard Attack Sequence

• Modified to now be a blizzard, quick sword attack, blizzard again, and quick sword attack again

Big Black Hole Attack Sequence

• Modified to now be a big black hole, hard laser altar, big black hole again, and long sword attack

Health Altar Attack Sequence

• Can occur in both phases
• Once this sequence ends, it transitions to a random attack sequence
• Modified to now be a crimson attack or hard laser altar, big black hole, 2 long sword attacks, and a sneak attack
• This sequence does not end with the usual crimson, sneak attack combo

Phase Transition

• Increased variety of messages that can appear during phase transition
• None of the messages are canon, just something I can imagine Ji saying
• Chance for nonsensical messages

Known Bugs/Issues

• Flying swords have a chance to move harmlessly through Yi, not causing damage or allowing a parry
• Black holes have a chance to lower into the ground, most likely due to the speed increase
• Yi can rarely take damage from seemingly nowhere
  • I suspect this is due to the attack sequence modifications somehow creating an invisible damage source during a laser altar
  • This issue most commonly occurs while near an altar (Laser or Black Hole) and Ji launches an attack
  • While not frequent, this can be a run-ender, especially when on low health or attempting hitless
  • I am working on identifying and fixing this issue
• Small graphical errors are visible in certain animations, due to material and shader modifications

Tips

• You can and should unbounded counter black holes. This prevents them from damaging Yi.
  • Note that if the black hole has suddenly gone halfway into the ground, it can damage Yi again even if it has been unbounded countered
• Being airborne during fast blizzard attacks allows for parries without needing to rapidly change orientation
• Swift Descent Jade is especially useful in this fight as there are many attacks that require careful positioning and dashing
  • With this jade equipped, Yi can perform an aeriel down dash through a laser circle without taking damage
• Steely Jade is especially useful for this fight, as Ji does not give a lot of opportunities to do a full 5-Qi blast
• A consistent ranged attack is helpful for destroying laser altars too far away when Yi's movement is prevented by a black hole
• Ji is not stunned by a 5 qi charge full control unless while doing divination
• Avoid trying to heal in the middle of an attack sequence unless the Quick Dose Jade is equipped
• There is enough time to perform unbounded counters on both crimson attacks, even in their accelerated state

Showcase

• Youtube Video: Nine Sols Enlightened Ji Mod, V1.1.0
• Github Repository: NineSolsEnlightenedJi

Acknowledgements

• Code was written through heavy reference of MicheliniDev's Eigong Prime Mod, KaitoMajima's Promised Eigong Mod, and Jakob Hellermann's Example Mod.
• The Unity Explorer Mod was essential to figuring out object paths and attack logic
• ChatGPT was used, especially for the shader and material code (that stuff is black magic), so thanks to all the Unity discussions online that OpenAI stole
• Thanks to everyone in the modding discord for their comments and suggestions!