The Road to a Billion Zeny - Newbie Leveling/Farming Guide

Introduction

This guide is for all the players, new or returning, who feel overwhelmed and/or confused about where to go and what to do, and most importantly, how to make fat stacks of cash. How to be rich? How to make billions of zeny to blow it all on degenerate gambling systems? Well, the road to a billion zeny starts with a single step, and this guide is that step.

I will be focusing on how to level and farm as an Arch Mage, but the general principles in this guide should apply to most classes. For gear advice for different classes, refer to our fantastic User Guides.

Why an Arch Mage?

Ask around for advice, and people will tell you that Biolos or Dragon Knights are the best early game farmers, and that Elemental Masters, Soul Ascetics or Inquisitors are the best late-game farmers, but I find the Arch Mage to be the perfect beginner class as it requires no initial investment, few consumables, has built-in sustain for both HP/SP, and is an above-average to excellent farmer at all stages of leveling and gearing. Later on, powerful debuffs will make your Arch Mage a valuable addition to any party, even if you're not (yet) geared for maximum damage.

Preparation

Before you jump in and start committing crimes against porings, there are a few things you can do to make your life easier.

Merchant Accounts

Click "Create New Game Account" on the launcher, and go ahead and make a few merchant accounts - no need to populate them for now, but it's good to have them ready to go. You can also make a couple support accounts for your eventual Cardinal/Performer supports.

I like to have about six to a dozen merchant accounts ready to go, as your early zeny-making days will be focused around Elunium (985) and you will be limited by the weight capacity of your cart.

Website and Wiki

Wiki: Main Page

Item Database: https://flux.muhro.eu/?module=item

Keep those pages open in your browser at all times. Both the wiki and the database are rich sources of information, and information is power.

Turbo

In the left-hand pane of the launcher, you can click "Turbo Setup" to open the turbo config file. As an Arch Mage, do your wrists a favor and use the Turbo function. In the config file, you can choose which keys act as turbo keys. It's F1/F2/F3 by default, but you can change those and/or add more if you wish. Personally, I prefer to use keys in and around the WASD cluster, but doing so will require you to deactivate Turbo mode to chat.

If you have a gaming or otherwise programmable/customizable mouse, you can rebind a side button to Alt+P to quickly toggle Turbo mode when you need to chat.

Custom Shortcuts

In game, press Alt+M to open the custom shortcut menu. Feel free to populate it with your favorite @ commands. I will share my setup below.

Key	Command	Info
Alt+1	@go main	Warps you to the main office for all your job changing and stat/skill resetting needs.
Alt+2	@go eden	Warps you to the Eden group headquarters to accept/turn in quests and get gear and consumables.
Alt+3	@al 100	Sets your autoloot to 100% (loot everything). Billionaires don't leave loot on the floor.
Alt+4	@lastwarp	Warps you back to the last place you warped to from the warper NPC (does not take into account any @go command you have used). Return faster to your farming spot!
Alt+5	@storeall	When a storage tab is open, this command dumps your entire inventory (except for the favorites tab) into the storage. Never drag anything ever again!
Alt+6	@getall	Takes everything (as long as your weight limit allows it) from the current open storage tab and moves it to your inventory.
Alt+7	@go 50	Warps you to the refinement/grading/enchantment hub.
Alt+8	@channel leave #global	Turns off global chat so you can better focus on your farming.
Alt+9	@channel join #global	Take a break from farming to meme around.
Alt+0	@go paramk	Warps you to the paramarket, where you can find vendors for all sorts of useful things (not so much for Arch Mages, but other classes love this).

Leveling

Pre-Warlock

Novice

Simply follow the tutorial quest (do not skip). If you've already done the entire tutorial quest, you can skip the second part (select "I know the Way"). But don't skip the first part, because you want that Novice Battle Manual (7803) !

The first NPC in the tutorial quest (the one who gives you the Novice Main-Gauche (1243) ) will summon a poring named Harald. Repeat his dialogue 3-4 times to summon more Haralds (nothing worse than arriving in Prontera with 10% XP missing from level 10, unable to get Eden gears).

Go to the Job Master NPC (main_office 75, 59) in Main Office, change job to Magician, and assign all your stat points to INT. Then, type @go eden to warp to Eden group.

Magician

In Eden, Talk to Secretary Lime Evenor (moc_para01 26, 31) and select "Join the Eden Group". Type whatever into the text box, twice (you don't actually have to type in your name, a "0" or even just a space will do). Then, take the warp at the top right of the screen, then the first one on the right (labeled "Paradise Equipment"). Inside, talk to Lucy (moc_para01 110, 91) and get your first set of Shadow Gear. Then, talk to Lothaire (moc_para01 110, 79), select Show Weapons and take the Paradise Dagger (510035) . Then click him again, Show Armor Sets, and take the Magical Set. Equip all your new gear and hit @go eden to warp back to the main room (billionaires don't walk).

Drag your Novice Fly Wing (23280) and Novice Battle Manual (7803) to convenient hotkeys (don't use the Manual yet), then click on the Warper NPC and select Dungeons -> Anthell. Stab 3 eggs to death with your new shiny dagger, then open your skills window (Alt+S), get Soul Strike to level 10, and drag it to one of your Turbo hotkey slots. Proceed to Soul Strike eggs and ants until level 40, adding all your stat points to INT as you go. STOP at level 40, warp back to Eden, and take the following missions from the 40-69 Mission Board (moc_para01 38, 36):

• Shipwreck -> 20x Pirate Skeletons
• Orc Village -> 20x Orc Skeleton & 20x Orc Zombie
• Orc Village -> 20x Zenorc

Warper -> Dungeons -> Sunken Ship. NOW use your Battle Manual and start killing Pirate Skeletons with Soul Strike. As soon as you hit Magician job level 40, hit @go main. Assign 10 skill points to Fire Bolt, and spend the rest however you wish, it doesn't matter. Talk to the Job Master NPC and job change to Wizard.

Wizard

Hit @go Eden and go back to the Equipment room, talk to Labraham (moc_para01 110, 83), and obtain + equip either weapon, it doesn't matter. You will use Soul Strike for the majority of your leveling. Return to the sunken ship, finish the quest but DO NOT TURN IT IN. Then go to Warper -> Dungeons -> Orc Dungeon, and kill 20 Orc Zombies in level 1, then go down to level 2 to kill 20 Orc Skeletons and 20 Zenorcs. Again, DO NOT TURN IN. You should be level 85+ by now, so go ahead and talk to the 3rd Eden mission board (moc_para01 41, 36), and take the following missions:

• Glast Heim: 15x Wraith & 15x Evil Druid
• Clock Tower: Take All

Assign your stat points: INT to 99, then rest to DEX, then warp to Dungeons -> Glast Heim -> Monastery and Soul Strike away. If you get cursed, just warp back to Eden and talk to the healer. Finish the quest objectives, and again, don't turn in.

Assign Fire Bolt level 8 to a turbo key, warp to Clock Tower, and walk a short way North, East, North to the nearest warp (c_tower1 235, 226). Kill clocks with Fire Bolt in level 2, and pick up stray Ridewords and Punks if you find them. Don't worry about finishing the quests, warp straight back to Main Office as soon as you hit 99, assign all your skill points to whatever, and get Reborn as a High Novice. Re-equip the Novice Main Gauche, and press Escape -> Character Select.

Interlude

Now's the time to make your Overcharge Merchant on your main account. Do the first part of the tutorial again, but this time put the Novice Battle Manual into your storage. Go to Eden, take your Eden gear, then off to Anthell to make some omelettes until you have enough skill points for Overcharge level 10. That's all. Yes, really. Go back to your main character, pick up the Novice Battle Manual from the storage, and use it ONLY if the previous one already ran out. Otherwise hold it juuuuuust a little bit more. Kill an egg, ascend to High Magician, warp to Eden.

High Magician

NOW use the Battle Manual to refresh the XP buff, and click on the 2nd Eden board to turn in the quests. Put 7 skill points in Soul Strike, the rest wherever, and assign stats: INT to 99, rest in DEX. Return to the Main Office Job Master and job change to High Wizard. Equip your High Wizard Eden gear.

High Wizard

In Eden, talk to the 3rd board to turn in the Glast Heim quest and accept it again. Assign skill points:

• Napalm Vulcan Level 5 (replace Soul Strike with this)
• Mystical Amplification Level 10 (assign this)
• Soul Drain Level 10

At the 3rd board, make sure you have all the Clock Tower quests accepted, and take a new one: Einbroch -> 20x Pitman.

Now's the time to replace your Novice Fly Wings with Fly Wing (601) . They're cheap, buy 100s of them and don't be afraid to use them. Warp back to Monastery for Wraiths and Druids, then warp to Dungeons -> Einbroch and kill 20 Pitmans, then keep killing them until you've gathered 15x Old Pick (7318) . Do not turn in the quests. Put the Old Picks in your favorites tab so you don't accidentally lose them.

Then off to Clock Tower: kill all the Clocks in level 2, then use the warp at the center-top of the map (c_tower1 147, 278) to go to level 3 and kill all the Alarms. Finally, go back to level 1 to finish the Ridewords and Punks. Finishing all these quest objectives should have you at 99/70. If not, kill more Alarms. Finally, do NOT turn in the quests yet.

Assign your stats: 99 INT/DEX (leave the rest), and put 1 skill point into each of: Storm Gust, Lord of Vermilion, Heaven's Drive and Meteor Storm. Assign the rest however you want.

Warp back to Main Office and job change to Warlock. Escape -> Character Select and relog (needed to assign stat points past 99).

Warlock

Now turn in all the Eden quests for a nice XP boost. Your stat priority for Warlock will be:

1. INT to 130
2. DEX to 120
3. LUK to 96
4. VIT to 96
5. Rest into STR (for carry weight)

Your skill order will be:

1. Soul Expansion Level 5 (replace Napalm Vulcan with this)
2. Radius Level 3
3. Drain Life Level 5 (assign this to a Turbo key)
4. Recognized Spell Level 5 (assign this)
5. Comet Level 5
6. Tetra Vortex Level 5
7. Reading Spell Book Level 1
8. Freezing Spell Level 5+ (dump the rest here)

Warlock Gear

First things first: return to the Eden Equipment room and talk to Labraham again. He will offer to trade you 15x Old Picks for an advanced weapon of your choice. This time the weapon choice matters, you want the Paradise Warlock Wand (640024) . Next, talk to Lucy again and she will offer you a set of Advanced Shadow gear. If you've been following this guide, you should have just enough Eden Coin (25223) to rent the set for a week. If you don't, womp womp. Come back later.

Now warp to Towns -> Lighthalzen and take the topmost exit (lighthalzen 214, 329), then the topmost exit from that map (lhz_fild01 296, 382) to reach the Kobolds map. Kill Kobolds until you have at least 3x Blue Hair (1034) .

Warp to Dungeons -> Beach Dungeon > Beach Dungeon 3 and take the bottom right exit (beach_dun3 286, 57), then a short walk to the top-left exit (cmd_fild01 77, 366) to reach Umbala field, where you will hunt specifically the Wootan Shooter monsters for their Elastic Band (7200) . Gather 15x of them, then return to Eden.

Talk to Louis (the only remaining NPC) in Paradise Equipment, and trade your Blue Hair (1034) and Elastic Band (7200) for a set of Advanced Magical armor.

Now in the Eden main room, talk to the Daily Hunt NPC, Roxanne (moc_para01 51, 23) and accept the Illusion Dungeons -> Illusion of Moonlight quest. Starting from now, make it a habit to keep up your Mystical Amplification buff. At this point, your XP buff has likely run out and you don't have enough Eden Coins to buy more, but fear not, we'll take care of that soon.

After turning in the Illusion of Moonlight quest, you should be in your 130s and able to accept the next step: Illusion of Vampire. Do a single turn-in of that to reach 150, and now we will be stepping away from Illusions for a time. Illusion dungeon quests are a great way to level up, but the main downside is that they reward 0 of the most important resource for a new player: Eden Coins.

Eden Coins

In Eden, talk to the 130-190 mission board (moc_para01 50, 37) and accept: Above lv 130 -> 60x monsters in lasa_dun02 and Above lv 140 -> 120x monsters in lasa_dun03. Then warp to Dungeons -> Lasagna Dungeon. Fly wing to level 2 and focus on killing the combat basilisks there (only kill the mandragoras to defend yourself), as they drop the valuable Yggdrasil Berry (607) . Then, go down to level 3 and kill everything. The spiders drop Yggs too, as well as Fruit Basket (12573) , which can also contain Yggs.

These quests only reward a medium amount of XP (even with an active Manual), but they also reward 9 & 16 Eden Coins for each turn-in. With your current level of gear, this is a great spot to farm for a couple hours, as you will not only earn Eden Coins, but also valuable items to sell to other players. On top of the aforementioned Berries, you will loot a bit of Elunium (985) and Oridecon (984) as well.

As soon as you have 30 Eden Coin (25223) in your possession, buy a [Bound] Bubble Gum (12264) from the Vending Machine. From now on, you always farm with an active Bubble Gum. Extra Eden Coins can be spent on Battle Manuals for faster leveling, but do not neglect your Bubble Gum stock. Any time you get low on Bubble Gums, stop what you're doing and go farm more Eden Coins. The Lasagna Dungeon will be your go-to Eden Coin farming spot until you change to your 4th job and unlock the Episode 17 dungeons.

Farming Your First 100 Million Zeny

With a solid stock of Bubble Gums in your pocket, it's now time to farm up some cash. We'll be focusing on two spots for now: Gefenia and Istana. Istana yields more zeny/hour but mostly in the form of Elunium (985) and Rough Oridecon (756) , while Gefenia yields more raw zeny (both from monster kills as well as overcharged trash loot). Both of those places also have garbage loot, so it's essential to set up an auto loot list: type @al 1 in chat to set your autoloot to 1% (looting only cards & rare drops), then type @alootid +ID, where ID is the ID of the item you want to loot. For Istana Cave, that would be 985 and 756 ( Elunium (985) and Rough Oridecon (756) ).

You can also use @al 100 to loot everything, and then use @nolootid +ID to exclude trash items from the drop list. Either way, once you've set up your loot list, type @alc to save it, give it a memorable name, and next time you can just use @als ID to load it.

Refer to Player_Commands#Loot-related_Commands for more information on loot commands.

For specific autoloot setups, see Autoloot_setups, particularly Autoloot_setups#Geffenia

Geffenia: go to the Eden board for 100-110 and take the Glast Heim -> 10x Abysmal Knight quest, then on the 120-140 board, take Other -> 5x Incubus & 5x Succubus. These quests only reward 5 coins, but 5 is more than 0. In Gefenia, focus on killing everything and looting, and only return to turn in the quests once you are 90% overweight (otherwise it's a lot of coming and going).

In Istana Cave, you want to focus only on Banaspaty, the weird flame-looking thingies, and completely ignore the other dudes who don't drop anything worth looting.

Both places easily yield 20-30 million zeny per Bubble Gum duration, meaning after a few hours you're just a merchant stall away from your first hundred million.

Setting up Shop

After a few hours of Bubble-Gumming, you should be holding a nice stock of Yggdrasil Berries, Elunium and Oridecon. Now is the time to use those merchant accounts we set up 17 years ago. Simply level a merchant until they have Pushcart and Vending (doesn't even need to be high level), and go to Warper -> Special Areas -> Market Place to set up shop. Right-click on the items you want to sell and click the link in the window to see the item's database page on the website. Check the current sale value and the vend history to find the right price point for your item.

Once your shop is open, type @at in chat to log out while keeping your merchant's shop open for business.

If you've been following this guide, you likely have way more Berries and Elunium that can fit in a single merchant's cart, so don't hesitate to level up more merchants and set up several shops at a time. Elunium especially is a huge commodity, and you shouldn't be afraid of flooding the market, even if you were to place 4,000 pieces at once.

Another option is to use the #trade channel to advertise your goods. You will sell faster, but at a lower price.

Spend Money to Make Money

Now with fat stacks of cash on hand, how can we best leverage that to make even more money? Use the @ws ID command as well as the #trade channel, and try to acquire these items:

• Illusion Thorny Staff of Darkness [2] (550030)
• Illusion Morpheus's Hood [1] (19428)
• Illusion Silver Guard [1] (460018)
• Illusion Morpheus's Shawl [1] (20948)
• Illusion Morpheus's Ring [1] (32238)
• Illusion Morpheus's Bracelet [1] (32239)

At 0 refine and with no enchantments, these should all be very cheap, costing you no more than 30 million in total. Refine the armor and weapons to +4, then buy Twins Refinement Box (100699) and Labyrinth Refinement Box (100423) and fish for +10s. On average, it should take you about 4 attempts per item. If you want to farm for Illusion Stone (25271) yourself, go ahead - but they are cheap enough that it's not really worth it. Don't bother with the weapon and accessories for now, but do enchant the Hood, Shawl, and Silver Guard. Your ultimate goal is double Rune of Intellect Lv2 (29001) on everything, but Rune of Intellect Lv1 (29000) will do for now, and barring that even a simple INT+1-4 will serve as placeholder.

When, during this process, you find yourself low on cash: go farm more Eden Coins, then return to Gefenia/Istania with Bubble Gums and rinse and repeat.

Vouchers and Cash Shop Items

Monitor the #trade channel for people looking to sell their Muh Voucher (50003) . You want to score these at 7.5m per unit, but 8m is acceptable. You'll need at least 5 to buy a HD Carnium Box (10) (16261) . For now, you can vend the Blacksmith's Blessing (6635) to get a bit of your money back, and use the HD Carniums to bring your Illusion gear to +11 - except the weapon, since it uses a different material. The Weapon's +11 bonus and +22 set bonus with Hood is really good, but you won't keep that weapon long enough for the investment to be worth it.

+11 Illusion gear with level 2 runes is a significant power spike at this point, so we can leave our old farming spots behind.

Finishing Up

Take the highest Illusion dungeon quest you can accept, you should be able to steamroll it now. Underwater level 2 may still be a bit tough, but you should be able to easily farm Twins and/or Labyrinth all the way to Level 200. Assign all your stat and skill points, and return to the Main Office Job Changer one final time to ascend to greatness as an Arch Mage.

Arch Mage

Now as a 4th job you will stop earning stat points when leveling up, and instead you will get trait points. Trait allocation is very straightforward:

• Raise SPL to 110
• Raise CON to 110
• Put the rest into WIS:STA at a 4:1 ratio

To begin your journey as an Arch Mage, return to Illusion of Labyrinth to earn some initial job levels. Your Arch Mage skill order is:

• Soul Vulcan Strike Level 5
• Mystery Illusion Level 5
• Two-Handed Staff Mastery Level 10 (you won't use 2H Staffs for a while, but it's for the Costume Stone combo)
• Rain of Crystal Level 5
• All Bloom Level 5
• Climax Level 4

Do a couple Illusion of Underwater Level 2 to bring yourself to level 210, then purchase a Glacier Wand (550069) , refine it to +9, and get someone to enchant it for you. Or buy it already +9 and fully enchanted. The enchantments you want are:

• Glacier Flower Spell (Magical-Race) (311349)
• Glacier Flower Spell (Magical-Size) (311351)
• Glacier Flower Spell (Magical-Element) (311353)
• Glacier Flower Spell (MATK) (311343)

Unlocking Next Level Farming

Are you tired of farming yet? Don't worry, you will be. For now, we need to unlock some better areas so it's off to questing we go! You can skip the Episode 17.1 and 17.2 questlines for a meager 6m zeny, or you can do them if you enjoy the lore and story. The most important is what comes after: Episode 18. You will want to do these quests (and you'll have no choice if this is your first character on this server), as they reward a good amount of Amethyst Fragment (1000405) .

If you want to do the Episode 17 quests, follow the guides here: 17.1_Illusion#Quest_Series_Illusion_17.1 and here 17.2_Sage_Legacy

Follow the guide for 18_Direction_of_Prayer to complete Episode 18 and unlock access to the Oz Dungeon.

Power Plant 2

This becomes accessible after completing Episode 17.2 via the Warper -> Dungeons -> Varmundt Dungeons -> Second Power Plant. Take the quest from the 130-190 Eden board at Above lv 190 -> 240x Monsters in ba_pw03 which rewards 33 Eden Coin (25223) per completion. From now on, this is your new Eden Coin farming spot.

Oz Dungeon 2

This becomes accessible during Episode 18 questing and is the best source of Amethyst Fragment (1000405) . While you're farming there, you will also loot a good amount of Shadowdecon Ore (25728) and Zelunium Ore (25730) , and some Shadowdecon (25729) and Zelunium (25731) . You can keep those for later or sell them for now, since you will need a good amount of cash for the next step.

You'll set up camp in Oz Dungeon 2 with your Bubble Gums until you farm up enough Amethyst Fragments to finish gearing yourself out of the last of your Eden gear