Blacksmithing (Legend of Mana)

Forging menu

See also: Materials (Legend of Mana) and Mystic Card

Blacksmithing is an activity and important game mechanic in Legend of Mana.

Unlocking

The activity is unlocked after the plater completes the quest Watts Drops the Hammer and can be accessed by going into the Workshops.

Primary & secondary materials

Materials used in blacksmithing are split into two categories.

Primary materials are the base items are made from and determine their stats. Gears of all sorts are named after them. Below is a list of all primary materials:

• Aerolites
• Bones
• Fabrics
• Hides
• Metals
• Scales
• Woods
• Others

Secondary materials can be used to alter the previous stats of the primary materials. Below is a list of all secondary materials:

• Bottles
• Coins
• Crystals
• Eyes
• Fangs & Claws
• Feathers
• Mana Stones
• Meats
• Pellets
• Pouches
• Powders
• Produce
• Seeds
• Urns
• Vials

Forging

While interacting with in anvil in the forge in their backyard, players can forge weapons & armor provided they have the primary material by selecting the Forge a Weapon or Forge an Armor option in the main ring menu. The freshly forged equipment will aways start with its base stats and is ready to temper.

Weapon forging

Weapons are primarily for attack power, so the task is to get the highest attack power possible. With the exception of aerolite and a few other metals, primary materials don't have any inherent stats when you forge a weapon.

Armor forging

Armor is forged with primary materials as weapons are, but is much more varied in terms of types of armor and material. Certain types of material should only be used with certain equipment. For example. Using metal, stone, or wood to make a robe will not do very well because robes are supposed to be made out of fabric. Making a piece of body armor out of silk won't get you very far in battle either.

Armor falls into three categories - heavy armor, light armor, and accessories. Heavy armor is the hauberk, shield, helm, boots, and armor. Light armor is the hat, robe, shoes, and mantle. Accessories are the ring and necklace. A few general rules are to use metal, wood, stone, and aerolite for heavy armor. Use hide, scales, and fabric for light armor. Accessories are forged best with expensive gems such as the emerald, pearl, and lapis.

Tempering

Once the player selects Temper a Weapon or Temper an Armor from the ring menu, they are prompted to choose an equipment from inventory to temper. Once selected, they can now select a secondary material to use for tempering.

The player can temper an equipment with any secondary material, which can lead to varied results depending on the combination. As such, it is recommended to save often. There are many types of secondary materials. Each secondary material has an effect during the current tempering turn, but many of these effects, such as mystic card creation or stat changes, persist from turn to turn. This can lead to complex interactions between different secondary materials.

Secondary Materials

Main article: Materials (Legend of Mana)

Below is an overview of all the various types of secondary materials you can alter your weapons and armor with, by tempering with them.

Mana Stones

Similar to silver coins that spirits give you for playing music for them. They come in fire, earth, wind, and water varieties. You can buy them from the student in Domina in Yuka's Inn. See Elemental Coins.

Mana Crystals

Special mana items that you can temper your equipment with for good spirit powers. There are only four in the game, and they're sold in jewelry shops in Geo, Lumina, and the Bejeweled City. The Chaos Crystal adds a spirit power that allows compatibility between opposing spirit levels, which allows for your equipment to be maxed out in all eight spirit levels.

Elemental Coins

Coins can increase the elemental essence on weapons and armor. As your elemental levels increase, the power in weapons will increase. In armor, your equipment will have natural resistances or based on the spirit you've added.

Seeds

Spiny Seeds can create the stat-boosting Yggdrasil card. The other seeds are an easy way to create Dryad cards and increase Dryad essence.

Produce

With armor, produce will give some status resistance and other bonuses. With weapons, certain produce can increase attack power. Stat mod produce reaches it's limit at around 10 or so, and then it won't accept any more bonuses.

Eyes

Other than Wicked Eyes, eyes are dangerous to put into your equipment, because they contain Pixies, mystic cards that won't leave your item except through special methods. Add that to the fact that pixies all lower your stats in one way or another, makes eyes a good item to avoid.

Fangs & Claws, Feathers, Bottles, Vials, Urns, Pellets, Powders, Pouches, Urns

All these items have different spirit powers. The best thing to do is to look at the item tempering effects list.

Spirits Power System

Each piece of equipment has four spirit power slots, one of which is hidden.

Spirit powers are an integral part of tempering equipment. When active in your equipment, they will alter its stats and other various natures. Depending on whether a power is on a piece of armor, or a weapon, it might not have any noticeable effect.

A piece of equipment is able to have three active cards at a time. New cards appear at the top, pushing existing cards down the list, and potentially removing the card at the bottom.

There are two types of spirit powers - spirit cards, and all other cards. Spirit cards go with all eight spirits, and leave an essence in your weapon, even after their card leaves your equipment. The highest essence level for each spirit is four. Spirits which are opponents of each other (i.e. Shade vs. Wisp) can not normally coexist in your weapon.

All other spirit powers have stat modifications, or different types of battle-gameplay alterations. Some spirit powers simply won't work with weapons, some won't work with armor.

What most people don't realize is that there's actually an invisible slot above the visible three, that lies dormant until another spirit power pushes it down into prominence. This means that in order to activate a spirit power in an item, you have to put in another spirit power that's going to push the invisible card into the visible list. For example, say you have three silver Dryad coins, two silver Salamander coins, and a dagger. You temper the dagger with the Dryad coins, and your slot list should look like this.

1. (invisible, dormant) Dryad
2. Dryad
3. Dryad
4. -----

To get the third Dryad to activate, you need to add your Salamander coin.

1. (invisible, dormant) Salamander
2. Dryad
3. Dryad
4. Dryad

Now say you want to push the salamander down. You add your second Salamander coin (or any other item with a spirit power). The first Dryad is kicked out of the weapon, because it was pushed out, and your Salamander becomes active in the top visible slot. This is how all spirit powers work, with the exception of the Pixie powers.

1. (invisible, dormant) Salamander
2. Salamander
3. Dryad
4. Dryad

Energy, Taint, and Essence Levels

Each secondary material has a certain amount of energy. If there's an elemental taint currently on the item — possibly from the secondary material itself — that energy can be used to raise the corresponding elemental essence level. Each item of weapon or armor has eight different essence levels corresponding to the eight elements.

Some secondary materials have essence level requirements to create a Mystic Card. For example, a Spiny Seed only creates an Yggdrasil card if the Dryad level is 5 or more.

In weapons, the total essence level raises attack power, making high essence levels desirable. In armor, essence levels are only useful to meet card requirements, and set resistance flags, which require only levels of 2.

Raising an essence level from 0 to 1, 1 to 2, etc., takes exponentially more energy, doubling each level. So, low essence levels are easy, but higher levels require more complex strategies or expensive and rare items. These strategies can include:

• Simply adding secondary materials with an elemental taint. This can be mana stones, seeds, elemental coins, etc. This is sufficient to raise an essence level to about 1, 2, or 3, depending on the primary material's elemental resistance and the secondary material's energy.
• Switching to different elements and raising them. The cost to raise different elements is low, and they contribute to the total essence level. Some elements conflict, however: Shade won't go up if any Wisp is present (so raise Shade first), Dryad and Aura conflict if Wisp and Shade are unequal (so equalize Wisp and Shade second), and you can only raise Salamander and Jinn, or Gnome and Undine.
• Mixing in Sulfur or Mercury to create Sorcerer or Witch cards. These cards discount the energy cost to increase essence levels. This is sufficient to raise essence levels to about 4, 5, or 6.
• Mixing in a Chaos Crystal to create an Ancient Moon card. This suppresses elemental conflicts, so all eight essence levels can increase.
• Using Glow Crystals to set up Dawn Nymph cards, so that when a Dawn Nymph leaves, adding 192 energy, there are enough Sorcerer and Witch cards and the desired elemental taint present. This is sufficient to raise essence levels to about 7, 8, or 9.
• Triggering consumption, which reduces one essence level, and releases its energy to raise other elemental essence levels. This can result in a net gain because Sorcerer and Witch cards discount energy costs, but don't discount energy released from consumption. This is sufficient to raise essence levels to about 10, 11, or 12, but can't raise all eight essence levels, since one or two elements have to be sacrificed and left at about 9.
• Aerolite consumption. In aerolite, Salamander essence is always consumed, and it even consumes and raises itself in the presence of Salamander and Sorcerer cards. Alternating Fire Stones and Sulfur builds and releases more and more energy, limited only by the maximum level of 15. A Salamander level of 15 can be consumed to raise other essence levels to 14 or 15, then built back up again with Fire Stones and Sulfur.
• Using a Mirror Piece to create a Mirrored World card and reversing consumption. Careful cycles of consumption and reverse consumption build and release more and more energy, limited only by the maximum level of 15.

Persistent effects

Some secondary materials and mystic cards set master moves (plunge attacks) on weapons, or status immunities and hidden effects on armor. These remain on the weapon until changed or replaced.

Master moves / plunge attacks

Certain mystic cards add master moves (plunge attacks) to weapons. Each weapon has three master move slots; a new master move replaces the one in the same slot. Each master move remains on the weapon until replaced.

Master moves on weapons

Weapon	Top	Middle	Bottom
Knife	—	Beast-Headed God Poison Blade Clown Quick Blade	Lord of Flies Sinister Blade
Sword	—	God of Destruction Flame Tongue Lunar Witch Vamp Sword Sun God Sunlight	Moon Goddess Moonlight
Axe	—	God of War Dragonslayer	Wanderer Woodchopper
2H Sword	Fallen Angel Chaotic Avenger	—	Ragnarok Ragnarok
2H Axe	—	—	Leviathan Treefeller
Hammer	—	—	Blacksmith God Sledgehammer Faerie/Spirit (Mountain) Quake Hammer Thunder God Mjolnir Volcano Magma Hammer
Spear	Man of Valor Spear of Light Ocean God Trident Ruler of the Sky Gungnir	—	—
Staff	Wind God Caduceus	—	Cleric Demonicide Ruler of the Sky Electrosceptre Wings of Darkness Golden Touch
Gloves	—	King and Aura 1+ Touch of Midas	—
Flail	Mother of Gods Green Princess	Mother of Gods Game of Death	Mother of Gods Red Dream
Bow	Sage Phoenix Falling Sun God Solar Flare Witch, Raven, and Wolf Magical Shot	Faerie/Spirit (Forest) Elven Archer Moon Goddess Lunar Shot	—

Status immunities

Certain secondary materials and mystic cards add or remove status immunities in armor. Each status immunity remains on the armor unless removed.

Pine O'Clock, Rhinoloupe, and Stinky Breath remove the status immunities that they don't set. All other items and cards add status immunities, leaving existing status immunities set. For those reasons, it's a common strategy to use Pine O'Clock, Rhinoloupe, or Stinky Breath first, then add other immunities.

Darkness immunity can only be added to helms and pendants. Paralysis immunity can only be added to boots, sandals, and pendants. So, pendants are the only armor type that can get all 8 status immunities.

Status immunities on armor

Item/Card	Armor
Baked Roach	Robe	+
Blackened Bat	Pendant		+
Faerie/Spirit (Housework)	Mantle						+
Faerie/Spirit (Ocean)	Hat				+
Faerie/Spirit (Shoes)	Boots			+
God of Destruction	(all)								+
Harvest/Fertility Goddess	(all)							+
Healing Claw	Shield	+
Metropolis	Robe				+
Moss	Helm		+
Ocean God	(all)					+
Pine o'Clock	(all)	−	−	−	−	−	+	−	−
Rhinoloupe	(all)	+	−	−	−	−	−	−	−
Sacrificed Nymph	Pendant							+
Spring	Pendant						+
Spring	Robe					+
Stinky Breath	(all)	+	−	−	+	−	−	−	−
Volcano	Hauberk								+
Wind God	Sandals			+
Zombie Claw	Pendant			+

Hidden effects

Certain mystic cards add hidden effects to armor. Each armor item may have one hidden effect; a new hidden effect replaces the current one. Each hidden effect remains on the armor until replaced.

A newly-forged armor item has no hidden effect by default. Certain armor items obtained through other means have a special effect built in.

One of the effects — no regeneration — is strictly a detriment, to balance out the strength of the Bed of Thorns card. If it's acceptable to have fewer than 3 Bed of Thorns cards, it's possible to replace that detrimental effect with a different one.

Hidden effects on armor

Card	Armor	Effect
Bed of Thorns	(all)	No HP regeneration.
Faerie/Spirit (Housework)	Ring	Lucre drops increase.
Faerie/Spirit (Shoes)	Sandals	EXP drops increase.
Harvest/Fertility Goddess	Ring	Shares EXP.
Heaven's Scales	(all)	Partial to full HP regeneration, even while moving or attacking. No normal revival from KO, but Phoenix effect still works.
Love Goddess	Pendant	Lucre drops increase.
Narwhal/Unicorn	Ring, Pendant	Only applies if a Spring is in an active slot, and no Spring card is in the hidden slot. Faster revival from KO.
Orchard Nymph	Ring	Faster revival from KO.
Phoenix	Ring, Pendant	Only applies if a Volcano is in an active slot, and no Volcano card is in the hidden slot. Instant revival from KO, removing a Phoenix card.
Valkyrie/Nymph of the Sky	Mantle	Partial to full HP regeneration, even while moving or attacking.
Wisdom Goddess	Shield	Immunity to stare attacks.

Stat bonuses

Stat bonus levels

1. −10
2. −5
3. −3
4. −1
5. +0
6. +1
7. +2
8. +3
9. +4
10. +5
11. +7
12. +9
13. +10
14. +12
15. +15
16. +20

When tempering or altering equipment, the secondary material used and the cards present can modify the equipment's stat bonuses.

The default stat bonus limits are from −1 to +1. Some materials will expand this range, but only for the turn that the material is used. Some cards will expand this range, but only while the cards are active.

Some materials and cards, such as the Yggdrasil card (all stats up), will move stat bonuses up or down a level each time a material is used. Stat levels aren't necessarily 1 point apart; it takes eleven stat ups to go from +0 to +20.

Other materials and cards, such as the Bumpkin (Luck +3), will set stat bonuses to a specific value, if it isn't already better.

Cards that leave no longer affect the stat bonus limits, but the stat bonuses themselves remain until further changed or limited.

Cappers

The following secondary materials affect a weapon's damage if they're the last material used.

Secondary material	Sharp	Heavy	Force	Tech
Angry Eye	—	—	+25%	—
Apricat	—	—	−25%	+25%
Blank Eye	—	—	—	+25%
Citrisquid	−25%	+25%	—	—
Clear Feather	—	−50%	—	+50%
Dragon Breath	—	—	+25%	+25%
Giant's Horn	−50%	+50%	—	—
Gold Clover	—	+25%	—	—
Masked Potato	−25%	+25%	—	—
Needlettuce	+25%	−25%	—	—
Pincer/Scissors	—	—	+50%	−50%
Peach Puppy	+25%	−25%	—	—
Poison Fang	—	—	−50%	+50%
Rhinoloupe	+25%	—	—	—
Sharp Claw	+50%	−50%	—	—
Silly Eye	—	+25%	—	—
Spade Basil	+25%	—	—	—
Spiny Carrot	+25%	−25%	—	—
Wicked Eye	+25%	—	—	—

The following secondary materials affect an armor's defense if they're the last material used.

Secondary material	Strike	Slash	Thrust	Magic
Aroma Oil (hide)	+50%	+50%	+50%	—
Cabbadillo (hauberk)	+25%	+25%	+25%	−50%
Citrisquid	+25%	−25%	—	—
Creepy Eye	—	—	—	+25%
Dangerous Eye	+25%	—	—	—
Little Eye	—	+25%	—	—
Loquat-Shoe (boots/shoes)	+25%	+25%	+25%	—
Moth Wing	−25%	−25%	−25%	+50%
Pear o'Heels (boots/shoes)	+25%	+25%	+25%	—
Sleepy Eye	—	—	+25%	—
Sweet Moai (hat)	+50%	+50%	+50%	—
Sweet Moai (helm)	+25%	+25%	+25%	—

References

• Kuponut
• YouTube | Cadeo Genesis

	Randi --"Whoa! What's a Rabite doing in a place like this?"
	This article is a stub. You can help the Wiki of Mana by expanding it.