The Sword Shield is a Building unlocked upon reaching 500 sect Reputation. It can be used to create a defensive swarm of artifacts to assist in battle.
It is a Feng Shui Building, but sees no benefit or detriment from good or bad feng shui. Only one can be constructed in the sect at any given time.
Usage[]
In order to place artifacts into the Sword Shield, you can either select the artifact and click the "Formation" button, or you can select the Sword Shield, click the "Formation" button, and then select the artifact(s) you want to put inside.
Artifacts placed into the Sword Shield are placed there permanently, and cannot be recovered by any means. Demolishing the Sword Shield will permanently delete any artifacts in it at the moment of destruction.
When the Sword Shield has at least one artifact inside, it can be activated with the "Activate" button. This will summon all artifacts currently inside to seek and destroy any enemies on the map. They will act autonomously, striking the nearest enemy artifact or body until they run out of Qi or the enemies are dead. When all enemies are dead, the Sword Shield can be deactivated, and any remaining artifacts on the field will fly back to the building.
It is important to note that the artifacts placed in the Sword Shield receive no benefit whatsoever from cultivator statistics, so their battle ability is severely lacking. The artifacts have no bonus to power, max qi, flight speed, turning speed, or any statistics at all, and all combat is done with the artifacts' base statistics.
Analysis[]
The Sword Shield is a very niche building. It's a good way to "use up" artifacts in storage when no merchant is available or expected, and it's very effective against mortals and beasts without an internal core. Against enemies with artifacts or artifact suppression, however, it is severely lacking due to having no bonuses to artifact combat. It creates a potentially massive swarm, but is largely unable to deal with significant threats.
Observation[]
The Thought Shard "Watching Fly" can be observed from it using an Awakened Animal.