In this guide, I will not give you "Do this and you will win every fight" recipes. Instead, I will tell you how to use the game mechanics, so that you can figure out yourself what your recipe is for suceeding in the martial arts world.
I will be using a lot of technical terms throughout the article, and do my best to explain them. In general however, for getting acquainted with the terms, read the Heavenly Scrolls provided by the game: These give the basic, technical explanations of the mechanics.
Note: This was written for Version 0.14 and might be outdated in places.

The game actually gives you several HP-like bars, which work sometimes in sequence and sometimes in parallel, and which are restored in different ways. They are as follows:

Vigor is your momentary well-being. It's depleted by taking damage, from the environment or fights. If it's empty, you fall unconscious, and all further damage you take will cause Inner Injuries. You can restore Vigor by Resting. Resting can be done at Beds, Campfires and Springs.

Spirit is your mental well-being. It's depleted by losing Verbal Duels, or by teaching your Techniques to others. If you take Spirit damage while it's low, you gain Hysteria Inner Injuries. You can restore Spirit via Social Activities. This can be done at Bars, Springs and Zhengs.

Health is your actual physical health. It is reduced by Inner Injuries of all kinds, and once it hits 0, you're dead. To heal Inner Injuries, you need to take medicine, visit a Clinic, or heal them using your Chi and your Meridians (explained later).

To become the Kung-Fu champion, you will need to learn more Techniques (meaning active Skills or passive Inner Kung-Fu) than the ones you start with when waking up - you will face diverse enemies and will need a diverse set-up to deal with them.
In general, the game is fairly liberal in giving you access to Techniques, but as you progress, you will need to be more proactive in seeking out more sources of learning.
The main sources are as follows:

If you find a person that knows a Technique you don't, you can get them to teach it to you. The most reliable way to do so is to first make them your friend by getting the Affinity up, them asking them to teach you. This will take several sessions of teaching, but the cost is nothing except for the time, and a bit of Spirit on the part of your teacher (plus whatever you invested to get them to be friendly).
If you join a Sect, you will also be taught Techniques from what they have for offer, and can in fact train them by just finding a Training Dummy and practising there, reducing the need for a teacher.
If you are on very good terms with a person (Master/Retainer, Intimate or Brother), they might als as event come up to you and teach you a skill out of their own volition, for free and instantly.

Unlike learning from a Teacher, a manual teaches you a Technique instantly. In addition, if you learn a Skill from a manual, you get given a tutorial fight against a spirit enemy, in which you have to successfully use the Skill to show your mastery of it.
Note that sometimes a manual has been translated slightly differently than the Technique it teaches. However, each manual name will be appended by a note if you have not acquired its Technique, which is the best way to check if you are still missing it.
However, manuals are pretty rare. Each Sect has a Bookshelf in their Training Room that has a few manuals on sale, but those will be a small selection from the total of Techniques known by the sect. You might sometimes find a manual on auction, or in a Treasure or Hidden Chest.
Many people therefore install a mod to add more sources of manuals, like 更好的商船 - Better Cargo Ships or 瞬間買秘笈_Buy_Books, which reduce the issue from getting sources of manuals to getting sources of money.

A few Techniques are learned from special challenges, most notably the Enlightenment Stones available on many tiles (see more about those in the Exploration section). For other special challenges, the Technique will appear in its corresponding list (Skills or Inner Kung-Fu) with a progress bar and a tooltip on how to acquire it, if you have made any progress towards acquiring it.
Of those special challenges, I will highlight the Bionic Skills, which are acquired by fighting animals. Most animals have a Bionic Skill, and as animals are not very hard opponents, these are a good start to just filling your Skill bar when freshly starting out.

If you have learned a Skill from any source, you can upgrade it further. To do so, equip it, and click on the arrow button appearing at the bottom of the Skill card. To level it up, you have to spend Kung-Fu Insight, a resource gained from every fight. Upgrading a Skill increases the multipliers and sometimes also other numbers, making the Skill generally deadlier. There is no downside to upgrading a Skill, as long as you have the Kung-Fu Insight required. Each Skill can be upgraded twice, and need to be at the highest level before you can transcribe or teach it to others.

In the game, you build the Kung-Fu world yourself, by placing tiles offered from a variety of sources:

• Whenever you complete a Tile Challenge, you in addition to the stat bonus can choose an extra tile to place, from the general pool of tiles
  
• Certain random events will offer you an opportunity to add a tile to the world, with choices based on the type of event and your dialogue choices.
  
• Temporary Cargo Ships at the edge of the world in addition to offering goods allow you to spend gold to add tiles, from the general pool of tiles.

When you are offered tiles off the general pool, it will give you five choices of normal tiles, plus the full selection of extra tiles. These extra tiles can be found in a separate tab, accessible at the top of the selection area. These extra tiles are usually double-size (2x2) and feature a sect on it. Many of them also have extra unlock conditions to allow you to place them.
When offering normal tiles, it will try to offer you new tiles first, but as the world grows, it will start offering you duplicates of already placed tiles. Such duplicates will not allow you to complete the Tile Challenge again.

Many tiles feature a Challenge, which serves as a guide and tutorial introducing you to the world of The Matchless Kung-Fu and its mechanics. Most of the challenges are self-explanatory, but the following to rules aren't well explained and might be important: Firstly, Tile Challenges do not refresh for new characters. Once complete, they can't be redone. And if they're partially complete for one character, they remain partially complete for the next. Secondly, with the exception of Hidden Chest and Enlightenment Stone conditions, where you complete the challenge requirements doesn't matter.
Enlightenment Stones are special places on the map where you can meditate to acquire a Kung-Fu Technique (a Skill or Inner Kung-Fu). These have their own conditions when you can access them, usuually involving a time of day, a specific weather, and a stack of conditions you need to have on you. To change the weather, you need to craft a City Guardian, place it on the tile with the Enlightenment stone, and pray at it for the required weather (you will get the coins back when you recycle the Guardian). To acquire the conditions, eat food that gives that condition, and remove any clothing you wear that affects the maximum amount and fade speed of the condition.
However, you can also complete Enlightenment Stones by acquiring its Technique from any other source, like manuals or a teacher. When you do so, the corresponding Tile Challenge will also mark the Enlightenment Stone as complete.
When you complete a Tile Challenge, as a reward you get to permanently increase one of your stats (Chi, Load, Vigor or the Attack Values), and then can place a new tile.

The game tiles each have a Biome and might have a permanent status effect it will attempt to apply to you. This status effect is shown in the upper right of the tile info when you mouse over it in the map or when selecting it for placement. It will attempt to apply this many stacks of that status effect to you whenever you are outside on such a tile. These stacks are a minimum it will attempt to keep up, which means it interacts with other effects as follows:

• Effects reducing the maximum amount of stacks will directly subtract from that number, potentially making you immune to the Tile Status Effect.
  
• Effects increasing the fading speed of the status effect will have little effect, at it will reapply the faded stacks each tick, as long as you remain on the tile.
  
• Leaving the tile (or going indoors) will cause the status effect to fade at the usual speed.

These status effects apply also to your companions (except Snakes and Martens you carry), and can over time cause Internal Injuries (see in that section), which you will need to get healed, or your companions might die after spending too long on the tile.
The current biomes implemented in the game are as follows:

• Temperate Biome (no Status Effect), which is the only place to find Maple, Liquorice, Drunken Grass and May-Lily, and which mostly features Monkeys and Horses as animals
  
• Desert (Heat), which is the only place to find Aspen and Wild Ramie, and features Wolves and Eagles as animals
  
• Lava (Heat), which is the best place to find good metal sources, and the only place to find San Qi
  
• Snow (Cold), which is the only place to find Plum, Snow-Lily and Ice Mines (the source of Warm Jade), and has Boars and Ferrets/Martens (it's called Ferret while wild but Marten in all other contexts) as animals.
  
• Swamp (Poison Gas), which is the only place to find Heartbreak Grass, the best place to find the Gu Insects, and has Snakes as animals.

Hidden Chests are usually part of Tile Challenges, although they are present on a few other tiles as well. These chests are actually well-marked, with a glow and a ray of light shining above them, but placed in secret or difficult to access areas. The best way to find them is to check every cave, all underwater areas, and to mine every rock - often, the entrance to the cave with the Hidden Chest is behind a rock.
Treasures in comparison are completely invisible, and while they can be dug up by standing in the right place and noticing the interact option, to find them one will usually need either a Treasure Map, or a Marten.
A Treasure Map can be acquired in many ways, but most reliably from Auctions, which will have them on offer. After using a Treasure Map from the inventory, it can be accessed from the map screen, and by comparing the drawing on it to the landscape, you can locate the treasure. While a Treasure Map can point to a treasure already present, it will usually generate a fresh treasure spot in the world, which wouldn't exist if the Treasure Map hadn't been used.
A Marten companion can detect treasure which already exists in the world, but doesn't spawn new ones - this requires either getting a map, or getting lucky when placing a tile. When near a treasure, a Marten will start to make noises and also circle visual effects. These will get faster as you get closer to the treasure, allowing you to home in on it. Note that the detection radius of a Marten is about a tile width, meaning if the Marten starts chirping when you enter a tile, the treasure will actually be one tile over in your direction of travel.

When meeting agressive animals, bandits or people you have offended (or wish to offend), it will result in a Kung-Fu battle. This is a special mini-game, which can be mastered quickly once you understand the rules.

The battles happen in turns, with the goal to deliver enough damage to the enemy Vigor to empty their reserves. Each turn, the following things happen in this order:

• The opponent chooses a move sequence to plan. This is displayed at the top of the screen on the right side.
  
• The player can choose to use as many Skills as they want from their deck, as long as they have unlocked their use by queueing the right Moves in previous rounds.
  
• The player chooses their own Move sequence, by connecting Moves in the center of the board.
  
• Once the player finishes the planning by releasing the mouse in the Cast Area, both sides execute their moves sequences at the same time, with each move possibly countering the enemy move.
  
• Finally, the opponent can choose to use any Skills they had already unlocked at the start of the round.

In general, Skills will do considerably more damage than Moves, but since the only way to unlock the use of Skills, and to block opposing Skills from being used, is to master the Moves, these should be the primary focus of your attention.

The Moves you do are executed in order, and compared to the Moves your opponent has queued at that position in their order. Certain moves counter each other, not only preventing that move from dealing damage, but also advancing a Counter scale, which when filled will cancel all remaining moves of the countered person, and allows all remaining moves of the countering person to deal damage unopposed. This includes whether these moves are counted for Skill conditions - countering well and countering early is therefore the best way of preventing the enemy from using their Skills. The length of the Counter scale depends on the amount of moves the opponent has queued, with more queued moves also requiring more counters to interrupt the chain.
The diagram of which Move counters which is shown in the Skill screen, as well as when mousing over the "!" button at the top of the battle screen.

The game introduces you to the types of symbols on the board very gradually and comprehensively, but there's a few quirks that might be important to know. Thus, I will walk you through the kinds of symbols you will see on your Move board.


Yellow and Blue symbols are the actual Moves you can queue. A yellow symbol is a move from your own pool, while blue symbols are moves from allies assisting you in a fight. These moves can be enhanced, which is shown by special effects around them:

• Blue Clouds means this Move inflicts one stack of Cold on the opponent
  
• Red Flames means this Move inflicts one stack of Heat on the opponent
  
• A Blue Spiral means this Move inflicts one stack of Drunk on the opponent
  
• Green Clouds means this Move inflicts one stack of Poison Gas on the opponent
  
• Yellow Lightning means this Move is a Crit and deals double damage

These enhancements can come from Inner Kung-Fu or from Skills.
A yellow Void symbol is an empty Move, also available from some Techniques. This does nothing, and only serves to be converted into another symbol via a connector. Do not connect to them without converting them - they count as their own type, forcing you to use up a connector to continue.


Once you have started queueing moves, you can only append moves of the same type. To swap types, you need to make use of the following limited options:

• A green Univeral Connector allows you to connect to any type of move on the board, once.
  
• A yellow with green border Converting Connector allows you to convert any Move to the type shown, and then continue to connect for that new type. Note that after using a Converting Connector, the conversion can only be overridden by another Converting Connector. Even connecting to a Universal Connector will not cancel the conversion.
  
• When queueing the third type of move in a round, you trigger a Suprise Move combo. This adds two randomly drawn moves to your board, and allows you to swap to these moves even without a connector. However, it's one-time, once you've connected another move it's back to the usual rules.
  
• A special effect on certain Weapons and Concealed Weapons allows you to treat two types of moves as the same. This means you can freely connect from one to the other without needing a connector.

Thus, plan ahead, as depending on your luck of the draw, you might only get three opportunities to swap between move types. Do not waste swaps early, as all moves of the type you're leaving might be wasted if you can't find a way to swap back.
In general, only swap when it's clearly advantageous by preventing you from being countered, or allows you to counter an enemy move.


The Defensive Move does not affect the connection rules, but instead marks the next Move queued (or two, once you're advanced enough) as to be copied. After the round, when new moves are drawn, copies of these marked Moves are also drawn and added to the board.
Use it every round, since it increases the amount of moves you'll have available next round. When choosing symbols to copy, unless you know very well what your opponent will use, focus on what you have a lot of this turn, instead of what you have little of. Since your moves are drawn from a deck, anything you have a lot of this turn will be gone from the deck until it's re-shuffled.

When connecting the fourth of the same type of move (no matter how many other moves were in between), you get up to two more of that type drawn from your deck. This can trigger separately for every kind of move, and should be planned for when deciding how to counter an enemy using the same move a lot of times in a row.

While connecting moves, the moves you have queued already will be subtracted from the Skill requirements shown at the bottom of the screen. Whatever number you see there is what you're still missing.

The moves you are drawing aren't fully random, but instead chosen from your Move Deck, which is built based on your skills. You get one move of each type, plus the amount of moves fulfilling the requirement for each Skill you have equipped. However, you will not get Weapon or Concealed Weapon Moves unless you have a weapon/concealed weapon equipped, even if they are skill requirements. When freshly waking up, you will be missing those pieces of equipment, and should try to acquire them quickly. Some events might give you some, but in a pinch, you can also craft them at a smithy (there is a Peach Wood version of each that can be crafted at lowest level from wood).
As a result of these rules, there's more or less two ways you can try to optimize your Move Deck: Either you attempt full coverage, by equipping skills that grant about the same amount of Moves for each type. This will give you an advantage for countering the opponent (and avoiding being countered), since you'll likely have some of each Move on the field, but makes it harder to trigger Skills, since the chance to draw enough of the one (or two) Moves it needs are lower. In this case, it's useful to equip weapons that allow you to treat two moves types as the same, as it allows you to connect more of the moves on the board.
The alternative is to focus on fewer move types by equipping Skills which all share these Moves. This greatly increases the chance to fire off Skills, because your deck has a lot of Moves filling the requirements, but makes you weaker in the countering game, since you'll be lacking options to answer the opponent moves. In this case, look for weapons with the effect of ignoring counters.

When it comes to choosing Skills, in addition to these two principles above, there's a few synergies to keep in mind that will help create powerful decks. While other guides will recommend Wave Palm as the go-to overpowered skill (and it is powerful, no doubt), there are actually very many builds you can use to achieve ensured victory, and which don't have trouble in group fights.
Certain Skills are associated to a Chi element, which gain bonuses from the number of active Inner Kung-Fu of that element (more of that in the Inner Kung-Fu section). This elemental bonus is +50% damage per level (up to a max of +250%), plus at highest level a doubling of all Skill special effects.
This can result in massive damage increases. For example, the combo of Arctic Palm (5x Palm Damage, inflicting 2 stacks of Cold) and Snow-Melting Sword (3x Sword Damage, +1 Hit per stack of Cold on the opponent) gets enhanced as follows:

• The base damage of Arctic Palm goes to 12.5x Palm Damage
  
• The effect is doubled, inflicting 4 stacks of Cold
  
• The base damage of Snow-Melting Sword goes to 7.5x Sword Damage
  
• The effect is doubled, giving 2 extra hits per Cold stack, a total of 8 extra hits.

Thus, the damage goes from 5x Palm + 9x Sword to a massive 12.5x Palm + 67.5x Sword.
While you can mix and match Skills from different elements without issue, and can certainly have a high level in each elemental Chi quite quickly, these kinds of synergy effects can make stacking a single element extremely powerful. For example, the above combo will get even more deadly when the Inner Kung-Fu Freeze Spell has caused some of the Moves used to activate those Skills to apply extra Cold stacks. The status effects associated with each element are as follows:

• Chi of the Sun: Causes, and triggers off Heat stacks on the opponent. Heat causes Vigor damage each turn, wearing the enemy down over time.
  
• Chi of the Moon: Causes, and triggers off Cold stacks on the opponent. Cold reduces the amount of Moves drawn, shortening the enemy queues and thus making countering and free, unopposed attacks easier.
  
• Chi of Venom: Causes, and triggers off Poison Gas stacks on you or the opponent. While Poison Gas is the weakest Status in combat, it is nasty after the fight, as Poison Gas fades slowly, and continues to do damage to the target. This can kill people you even just sparred with, and without tagging you as the killer.
  
• Chi of Harmony: Causes, and triggers off Drunkness stacks on you or the opponent. Drunk gives a chance that a move is nullified, dealing no damage and being unable to counter. It's more random than Cold, but in return is also stronger in terms of moves cancelled per stack.

Fighting with animals teaches you a Bionic Skill associated with that animal, unlocking the move after several fights. These Skills are pretty strong in the early- to mid-game and can be buffed with the Inner Kung-Fu Bionic Pentaform. They also all taken together cover the move types rather evenly.
While on the topic of animals, if you then tame the animals you defeated, you can make use of the Inner Kung-Fu Dragonform, the Skill Beast Wave and the Karma of Beasttongue, to give you an extra damage multiplier based on the amount of tamed animals.
There's several rather common Skills which when used will add more Moves to your current board (or, if that is full, will just instantly use them for free). These are a good addition to many decks, but taken together, they can cause you to be unbeatable from Turn 2 on, as you flood the opponent with incredibly long chains of moves. This can be capped by the Skill Sky Eating Palm, which increases its damage for every Move you have delivered via skills this turn.

Once you acquire an Inner Kung-Fu, you gain access to the Meridian screen, and the massive bonuses it can grant you. The easiest way to acquire your first Inner Kung-Fu is to go to sleep, which will unlock one.
In the Meridian screen, you will see a board of hexagons surrounding a glowing core, with three kinds of symbols strewn about. These symbols are the acupoints, which have the following functions: Firstly, each acupoint you connect will give you a small bonus based on its type (Circles grant Load, Squares grant Vigor, and Triangles grant a bonus to all attack damages). Secondly, when connecting acupoints in sequence such that they form the string of symbols of an Inner Kung-Fu, and then returning to the core, you activate the bonuses of that Inner Kung-Fu.
To connect the acupoints, you click on the core, then on the field you want to go to, creating a Meridian between your current position and the goal. The length of your Meridians is capped by your Chi, shown to the right, with each tile traveled needing one point of Chi. If you made a mistake, you can click on a Meridian-covered tile and use the "Break Meridians" button, removing all parts of the Meridian that come later (unfortunatly, just moving around a bit of Meridian while leaving the tail intact is not possible). To increase your Chi, you can complete Tile Challenges or eat high-level ingredients and medicines. I recommend not waiting for later with these medicines, eat them when you get them, as more Chi is always an advantage.
While the game explains these rules, it hides the following two important additions from you: Firstly, Meridians can join together. If you start a second Meridian at the core, you can click on where the first Meridian is already flowing to join them up, with the second Meridian from then on taking the same path as the first. And secondly, when joined that way, each acupoint on such a joined Meridian gives it bonus for each component Meridian.
This results in the practise of "Dipping", which means joining all your Meridians together very early to get five times the bonus from the connected acupoints (five times because you need the sixth tile adjacent to the core for the returning of the Meridians to the core to gain the Inner Kung-Fu). Dipping allows you to be considerably stronger than the game expects you to be at any stage of progress, and will allow you to steam-roll enemies.

On the left you'll find a list of all Inner Kung-Fu you have learned, with their required strings of symbols. Mousing over them will show you their effect, and if active, they will glow golden. Their symbols will turn gold if as you connect a Meridian with the correct symbols, giving you a guide on how to connect them to unlock the bonuses.
You can unlock not only several Inner Kung-Fu with the same Meridian by connecting first one, then the other string, before returning to the core, the strings are even allowed to overlap. Thus, if you have already connected Bionic Pentaform (⟁⧈⭗⧈⟁), to connect Golden Acupuncture next (⧈⭗⧈⟁⭗⟁), you only need to add a circle and a triangle. The same trick also works for joining Meridians: You can unlock Bionic Pentaform (⟁⧈⭗⧈⟁) and Tranquility Spell (⟁⧈⧈⭗⧈⟁) using only 7 acupoints, by connecting one to a triangle (⟁), the other to a triangle and square (⟁⧈) and then joining both together to connect the remaining symbols which are the same for both (⧈⭗⧈⟁).
Using these techniques, you can fit a lot of Inner Kung-Fu into a small number of acupoints, although finding the optimal solution can be hard. Thankfully, I've written a Python script which can help you, and which you can find here: https://github.com/AlienAtSystem/KungfuMeridians
When applying such a solution, however don't forget to Dip, and to connect as many additional acupoints as your Chi allows, even if you don't unlock Inner Kung-Fu with it.
Some Inner Kung-Fu have elements associated with them, increasing the Chi of that element by a certain amount if connected. The level of elemental Chi is shown on the left, with the symbols also serving as filters to restrict your list of Inner Kung-Fu to those granting that element. As the level increases, you gain more bonuses, mostly a damage multiplier to Skills of that element, but also resistances to the status effects associated with the element. The bonuses cap at 5, and unless you need their passive effect, it's not neccessary to connect Inner Kung-Fu that would get you above that number.
At the start, you have 18 acupoints, 6 of each symbol, which serves as a limit to how many Inner Kung-Fu you can activate. By defeating the rare animals, Poison Toads (the easiest to kill), Lizards and Dragons or being high enough in Leechcraft, you can gain Meridian Shift Pills that allow you to change the type of acupoints (this can be done from within the Meridians screen), which can allow you more Inner Kung-Fu or reduce your Chi needs to achieve a certain combination. Use it liberally, these animals respawn if you need to change the acupoints back later.
In addition, there are two Inner Kung-Fu which increase the size of the board, and add more acupoints. One, Primordial Chaos, has to be found in the world, either on a powerful practitioner, or in a sect's bookshelf. It adds 12 extra points and 2 levels of Chi of Harmony as soon as you know it, as it has no requirements. The other, True Method, has to be unlocked via Karma, by having either 1 million gold, 30 intimate relations, or 30 hostile relations, when your character returns to karma. It is then available to all following characters from the game start, but to get its bonuses, you need to connect the 18-symbol string that is its requirement at least once. This increases the board size and adds 15 acupoints permanently, even if you then disconnect True Method again (however, you lose its other benefits). Both ways stack, for a maximum of 45 acupoints.

Taking damage when out of Vigor, suffering from status effects for too long, or taking Spirit damage when low on Spirit all creates Inner Injuries, which reduce your Health, and if untreated, will kill you when the Health reaches 0. To heal these, you can also use the Meridians screen.
Each Inner Injury appears as an extra, red symbol on the board. By connecting all symbols of the same type to a Meridian (which does not need to go back to the core), you start the healing process, and once the timer shown around the symbols runs out, they disappear. You can not only do this for yourself, but also other people, by choosing Assist -> Cure in the interaction menu.
However, if you don't have enough Chi to connect all symbols, you have to rely on outside help: A Clinic Manager can cure you if you lie down on the clinic bed and pay the cost, or you can take a Marrow Refining Pill to remove 10 Inner Injuries from the board (possibly getting the number low enough for your Chi to suffice). On the other hand, if you have reserves of Chi even after connecting your Meridians for the Inner Kung-Fu, you can set yourself up for auto-healing: By covering as many empty tiles as possible with your Meridians, you can increase the chance that when you open the Meridians screen to start the healing, all Inner Injury symbols will already be covered by a Meridian, and disappear without you having to do anything.
The Inner Kung-Fu Golden Acupuncture will make healing considerably easier. It is acquired by levelling Leechcraft, and its effect is, that while it is active, when an acupoint gets connected to a Meridian, it removes all Inner Injuries from its 6 adjacent tiles (even if the Meridian doesn't return to the core). For healing, this means you can first connect all acupoints, greatly reducing the number of Injuries present, then break that Meridian and cover all remaining ones.

While punching things is generally the first thing to do in the Kung-Fu world, you can also interact with people in other ways as well, either becoming their friend, or their sworn enemy. As you might expect, becoming friends usually offers more benefits.
Your relationship to others is tracked in two ways: Firstly, as an attitude number, which increases and decreases based on what happens between you. By mousing over the number, you can see a list of all events that happened and influenced the rating. And secondly, via relationship tags, which define significant relations to each other, like Parent-Child, Sworn Brothers, Lovers, Master-Retainer, or, of course, Enemies. These significant relationships can be seen in the map in the social menu.

If somebody has a positive attitude towards you, they will assist you in a variety of ways: They will agree to teach you Techniques they know, the will assist you in fights and they won't kick you out of their house during the night. I recommend being a good friend with at least one Clinic Manager, as they treat their friends for free, which is great savings.
To make friends, there are several options. The most basic is gifting them stuff they like, then teaching them Techniques they don't know. If you have enough Chi and Golden Acupuncture, you can also Cure them if they acquired inner injuries. The more involved methods are questing, and the Verbal Duel.
By selecting Assist -> Quest, you can see what items the person requires. You can claim a quest to see it in your list to help remember, and once you have the required items, you can return to them, hand in the quest, and enjoy both being given some money, as well as a boost in attitude. Quests regenerate over time, so that you can return some day later and keep going with the befriending. You'll find craftsmen, and especially Clinic Managers, to be especially worthwhile to quest for, as they generate quests for their raw materials, which are easy to get, and results in more quests in the list, allowing for more positive attitude gained per run.
The Verbal Duel is an often-overlooked method, especially given the esoteric minigame it comes with. While some events will challenge you to a Verbal Duel, and some screens will offer you to do one, you can also just start one at any time with people, and if you win, increase their attitude towards you.
How the Verbal Duel works is that each side gets to build a deck of Verbs. From that deck, up to 9 are drawn each round, arranged in a square, and then have their effects triggered. The sum of the base Eloquence of each Verb, plus the bonus Eloquence from each triggered effect (multiplied by a bonus depending on the amount of effects triggered), is then inflicted on the opponent, moving the top bar towards their end. If it reaches the end, they lose the duel and the winner gets to choose an effect.
Each round, the players are offered a selection of Verbs, from which they may add one to their Deck. These Verbs come from a general deck, which at the start of the game consists of many copies of the Verb "Nonsense". As the character completes challenges, these are turned into other cards, increasing the variety of cards offered.
The most important thing to keep in mind when learning the Verbal Duel mechanics are the following: It's best to keep the deck small. You can skip adding a Verb to the pool, and should do so liberally. And secondly, there are cards that remove others. Make sure you know how to use them, because while they can keep your deck small, they might also remove Verbs you wanted to keep.

You can hire people you are good friends with to protect you, or, if they are your Retainer or Student, ask them to team up with you for free. They will accompany as you venture out into the world, and provide you with a significant bonus: That of assissting you in fights. Each character that assists you will draw you one Move off their deck at the beginning of each round, and also provide all their Skills. These Moves use their stats instead of yours, but will otherwise count as yours, fulfilling Skill requirements and being counted for combos. Since everything in the combat system flows from having Moves, and many of them, these free ones should never be turned down. Generally, the tier list of Companions to have along are:

• Best: A Snake and a Marten pet. These two animals are special, in that they live on you, and don't need to follow you as the others do. In addition, they are immune to the tile status effect as long as they're with you. There's no reason not to have them with you at all times.
  
• Good: A human companion. They will follow you even up cliffs and usually provide more Skills they can use than an animal. However, you will need to take care of the Inner Injuries for them, as they won't do it unless removed from the team.
  
• A Hassle: All the other animals. The animal qinggong is pretty bad and they can't sprint, so they will have a hard time catching up even when their pathing doesn't give up entirely and they get stuck some three tiles back. In addition, they can't be cured by carrying them to a Clinic bed, you have to heal them yourself.

If you offend people (usually by stealing, needlessly attacking, looting or punishing them after a fight), they will develop Enmity towards you, escalating to them becoming your Sworn Enemy. Such people will regularly seek you out to attack you to settle the score. If you have several such enemies, they will band together, and bring some of their friends, and attack you as a group. And just as friends help you in a fight, they will assist each other. This means you have to fight each of them in sequence, in a single battle, while they lend each other moves and stack their Skills. If you've relied solely on Wave Palm until that point, you'll now learn why you shouldn't: Because it can only be used once per battle, you can knock out the first, but all the others will have to be beaten the hard way.
Having enemies is a good way to ensure that there's many fights, which give you Kung-Fu insight to level up your Skills, but note that most things that make enemies are crimes, and will cause you to become Wanted by the Imperial Guards.

A lot of things in the game require money to access, and often significant amounts. Even if you're not trying to get the one million coins as one route towards the True Method karma, you will find yourself strapped for cash quickly when trying to level up Cooking, Weaving, Leechcraft or Smithing. Unfortunatly, I can't give you very good news, as the game does not make it easy to get rich.

The most reliable yet honorable method I have for making money is running errands for people, or as the game calls it, Quests. Almost every person you talk to has some things they want, accessible under Assist -> Quest in the interaction menu. If you give them the items demanded, they will reward you with money that is by a percentage larger than the market value of the items.
When starting out, doing quests for Materials (like Wood, Stone and Herbs) or easily craftable items is a quick way to get some money, but once you advance, it's more lucrative to focus on the Manual quests. Most people want 2 manuals, one Skill and one Inner Kung-Fu, and the rewards range from 1200 to 3000 coins. As you can transcribe all Techniques you know at a Bookcase for 1000 coins, handing in high-value manuals is a good way to make money, quickly.

On the flipside, a lot of the money in the game is carried in the pockets and chests of NPCs. By beating them unconscious and looting them, or breaking into houses and walking off with their valuables, you can acquire a lot of riches otherwise inaccessible.
Note, however, that this will not only will make you enemies when you're witnessed, but also increase your Wanted level with the Imperial Guard. If you can't beat a guard when they come to arrest you, you'll end up in prison, and will have to wait a long time (in real time) for release, if you're not executed outright. And even if you avoid the guards, you will make enemies, which will come after you. Invest the ill-gotten gains wisely.

When building a house, you can place counters and other service decorations in them, and by interacting with them, open them for business (just like you can buy things from those decorations in other people's houses). A decoration open for business means that NPCs can buy the goods inside for money. This can sound like a good way to make coin passively, as you spend only the time needed to fill the counter, and can then walk away and collect the money later, there are three unfortunate caveats that make managing property not as lucrative as it sounds:

• People can both buy and sell at a counter. While technically, you could also sell, NPC counters never have money in them unless you place it there. But for your own counters it means that if you're not fast enough, some other NPC might come by, take some of your hard-earned money, and leave you a handful of pinecones in return.
  
• People don't travel far. You can sell to NPCs in the vicinity, but sooner or later they'll be tapped out and the money trickle dries up.
  
• And worst, unscrupulous characters can come by and just rob you blind, taking all money that's in the counter and walking off.

Via the interaction menu, you can sell goods to NPCs. They will usually carry around something in the thousands of Coin, an amount you can cover with basic, over-produced materials like Flint. By performing a Verbal Duel, you could improve the exchange rate of goods, but it will not make more coin appear - what the NPC has, is the most you can gain via trading.
If you're carrying a lot, an NPC might randomly walk up to you and offer to buy some of your goods.

If you're master of a Sect, you can assign your disciples to manage properties for you, and also by expanding your territory get taxes from peasants. This does provide a constant trickle of income, but as you'll find, it's a trickle, and most of it is in goods, not money.