Test of the Singing Cicada


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University Text

Find cicada cages placed around Egypt by other players, then place your own for a stream of points.

Overview

The Test of the Singing Cicada is a test in the discipline of the Human Body, and is also the way to permanently increase one's Speed attribute. The test focuses on exploration, particularly of remote or hard-to-reach areas in Egypt.

You must go to a University of Body and hand over a certain amount of cicadas you have found for the scientists to give you a cage to build. Usually it takes 4 - 9 cicadas to do this. A cage costs 1 linen and 4 boards to build. You cannot build near steep terrain.

You have the above options for cages. Sometimes two or more cages are built on top of each other so it is good policy to "Move the Nearby Cage." under Self -> Tests -> Test of the Singing Cicada.

Finding Cages

At the start of tale, there are seed cages are placed by The Stranger.

In Tale 8, cages can be found in every region but you cannot place a cage in an area controlled by your faction.

"You cannot place a cage in land we (Your Faction) control, they are really noisy, let someone else put up with them..."

Generally this is presumed to be the areas of the 3 Kingdoms. It is unknown what happens when factions and regions change loyalty through Tribute offerings.

Passing the Principle

Hidden across the Egyptian landscape are dozens of Cicada Cages, detectable mainly through the continuous chirping sounds they emit. A player who comes across a cicada cage is allowed to take a cicada from it (provided the player has signed up for the Cicada test). When a player has collected enough cicadas, he may build and place a cicada cage of his own. Cages crumble and are gone after 7 players have discovered them.

Cicada points are earned both by finding other players' cages (a single bonus for each cage found) and by building your own (points earned continuously for as long as your cages survive). Every 3 Egypt days, the 21 players with the highest scores receive a permanent Speed advance. They then all lose cicada points equal to the 21st player's score. (In effect, the 21st player's score determines how much it "costs" to "buy" a Speed point that day.)

Silenced Cicada Chirps

Part way through Tale 8 a method of silencing the continuous cicada chirp was introduced as part of the T8 Cheese System. Baramily cheese when applied to a cicada cage silences the chirp.

There are a number of unknowns about the effects of giving cheese to insects.

Duration of the silence
Application to your own cages
Application to another player's cages
How the age (potency) of the cheese affects the silence
Any negative effects from applying the cheese to the cage
Offsets to the increased difficulty in finding silenced cages

Getting More Speed

Speed points are allocated depending on the number of advances you achieve. For the first eight levels, it is one advance per speed point. It then increases exponentially.

Speed Amount	Advances from previous speed	Total Advances
1	1	1
2	1	2
3	1	3
4	1	4
5	1	5
6	1	6
7	1	7
8	1	8
9	2	10
10	4	14
11	8	22
12	16	38
13	32	70
14	64	134
15	128	262
16	256	518
17	512	1030
18	1024	2054
19	2048	4102
20	4096	8198
21	8192	16390

It is possible to receive more than one advance in a day.

For example, if you have 15,000 points and the advances cost 5,000 points then you will gain three advances.
For example, if you have 460,000 points and the advances cost 20,800 points each, then you will gain 22 advances (457,600 points) and keep 2,400 points for the next round of advancements. It is verified that you can get more than 21 advances in a single go.

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