Official artwork of China
China is the location of Li's mountain fortress that Michael Ford visits during the events of Conduit 2's story mode. Ford will firs spawn on a stone path that leads to the fortress, he and Prometheus are trying to warn the progenitor Li that Adams is trying to kill him, but finds that the trust have already sent their troops to infiltrate into the fortress. After traveling through a long path, the duo reach to some ruined structures, where they are "welcomed" by a new enemy, a Trust Assasin, equiped with advanced cloaking technology (normaly, due to its location, when the enemy drops its weapon, it will land on a ledge that is too high for Michael to reach, making him unable to acquire this weapon until further into the mission)
Pathway to the temple
Shortly after Ford will manage to leave these ruins and continue through another long path until the next checkpoint. In this location, the Trust have set up a trap for Michael, instaling a conduit that spawns several enemies, among them are Drones and Skimmers that still work for them.
After dispatching these enemies, Ford will find a new type of enemy weapon, the Shield Turret, that guards the entrance to the inner temple, and searches the area to find something to bypass the security. Inside a Mobile Command Unit, he finds a prototype weapon made by the trust, the AR-C Eclipse that renders him invisible (which happens to be the weapon that the Assasins were using against him earlier), and manages to pass by the turrets without being detected.
Ford reaches to a new section, where he encounters more Drudge, asking sarcasticaly if those are Free Drudge, to which Prometheus respondes in a similar fashion that they must not be since they are hostile. More soldiers and drones are awaiting to Ford to come down the stairs but he dispatches them all. Once the place is clear of enemies, Ford uses the ASE to hack into an ancient locking device, that rises a set of platform leading to a small platform over a pool of deadly liquid metal.
Vs the Jade Warrior
Once he sets foot on the platform, he finds a new type of enemy, the Jade Warriors. They simple come to life from statues and attack him on sight, they also attack trust soldiers when they have the chance. To make things more complicated, Trust soldiers appear, armed with SMAWs and Shriekers, on the other side of the platform, far away from Ford's reach. Once he kills them, another Jade Warrior comes to life, and after defeating it, new stepping stones appear, leading Ford to the temple's main entrance.
One of the element strongholds
Once Ford reaches the fortress inner chambers, he learns that he will have to acquire four elemental energies to deactivate the main chamber lock (Water, Fire, Wood, and Metal). The trust soldiers attemped to get these artifacts but it was Ford who could get them first. Although necessary for Michael to advance, these locks did not stop the Trust from getting just a bit ahead of him, and set up another trap just in front of the main chamber entrance to kill him and get his elements energies.
Just before getting to main chamber, Ford also finds another prototype weapon lying on the ground. Prometheus reveals it to be the Phase Rifle, which capabilities allows the user to see and shoot through walls, a feature that Ford puts to good use in just moments later when he battles soldiers carrying SMAWs behind cover. After dropping to ground level, he finds a conduit that spawns several powerful enemies, but he manages to defeat them and gain access to the main chamber.
Li's chamber entrance
Once inside, he places the elemental energies into their respective pedestal locks and gains access to Li's reclusion chamber.
The mission ends at this point and continues with Ford's encounter with Li.
Trivia[]
- This particular level has arguably the biggest Sequence Break[1] trick in the entire game:
- When Michael reaches to the room with the four elemental gates blocking his path, he can stand on one of the large decorative blocks of the floor (the closest one to the first gate) and perform a running jump to land into the roof of the gate. He then can walk all over the structure and land on the other side of the path, skipping entirely the element acquisition segment of the mission. Because the game does not require Ford to actually have the elements scanned to be able to place them in their pedestals at the end, this is an easy way to save plenty of time in this level. If Ford falls into the path blocked by gates he will not be able to get out of there and the mission will have to be restarted from the previous room.
- Also, after passing the four gates, Michael is not required to kill anyone to complete the level, all he has to do is run past everyone until he reaches the final door and uploads the elements. One Advancer might reach to the place though, so at least this one will have to be killed to avoid losing the mission.
- Given the level's penchant for living statue warriors and silvery liquid, in addition to Serenity's fountain producing water that gives eternal life, the area of China being explored in Conduit 2 is in fact the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first and most famous Chinese emperor.
- The coordinates for this area are +30° 9', +110° 10'. When used on a map, these coordinates lead to a remote zone located at the east of China.
- It is actually possible to climb to the roof where a Trust Assassin is hidden in the area where Ford is officialy introduced to the AR-C Eclipse:
- Ford must first climb to the ledge where the Phase Rifle sniper was near the Mobile Command Unit, then he has to jump to a higher ledge on the same wall, from there, do a running jump to land on top of the MCU, and then perform another running jump to the structure where the assasin is located. Nothing of importance can be found there though, as it seems it wasn't intended for the players to be able to reach that spot since some parts of the roof lack textures.
- A much simpler and easier way to reach the same area is to jump to a small ledge/rock near the small Conduit, from there jump onto the Conduit, and then jump to the ledge where the assassin was located. You may grab his AR-C Eclipse while you are there, instead of entering the MCU, thus another way to skip the scene that happens when the player enters the MCU.
- On the first passageway of the mission, before the first checkpoint, rock slides happen on some of the mountains whenever Ford gets close to them.