If you just want to see what this game is all about and the basic mechanics I have another page taking a deep look at it and I recommend watching it first. Or you can watch it as a video:

We are talking about the early-release version of the game in May 2021. Things have already changed quite a bit with the addition of 20 new levels and some new items, but this guide is still valid up to level 200 and the mechanics are the same.

It’s not a game that you can rush in a few days... Actually, you can never quite finish this game since you can keep on upgrading your gear and new harder levels will keep on being created.

First of all, install the game (you need an invitation for that so you can use mine or join the official discord and get one from there) and do a bit of everything around to get a feel of what we are talking about. Up to level 17 just do what the quests tell you to: craft everything, use all the old gear to upgrade the new one, fight and level up.

Since the energy is the same for everyone per day, your focus should be on getting as far and as fast as you can on the world map to get access to better recipes that you can craft and sell for profit to lower-level players. If you ever get stuck, you can farm reagents, craft gear from them, sell it and buy upgrades.

In this tutorial we will focus on helping you reach level 100 - from here you should have gotten the grasp of the game and you should have a good base of going forward

I was able to beat level 100 on my first character in 3 days with what gear I could buy from what I mined while I was doing other stuff on the computer and what I gained from trading.  I had lvl 98 when I did it. Now the mining has become harder but the prices are also lower so your results may vary.

Your level is important for 2 reasons:

• It gives you a minor boost in stats
• Your chance to hit depends on it - you will often miss a target with a higher level.

Often a level up is all you need to pass a stage.

It’s great if you can fight multiple times in a battle where you get good XP and you also get at least 2 stars - for the materials reward.

If you try to beat the game with only what you can craft you are unlikely to make it too far in a decent amount of time. So the first step would be to understand how to gain some money and after that we will talk about what items are a good start.

The money in the game is called Nine Chronicles Gold (NCG) and is a cryptocurrency.
For now it is not available on any exchanges but it can be traded p2p using the official discord market.

The most basic way of earning some gold is by mining

Just leave the launcher open while you use your computer and with any good CPU (only uses 1 core and no graphic card) you should mine at least some blocks per day - each block gives you 10 coins. If after some days you are not gaining much, it might be a better move to just turn it off and save your computer some work. Because of the increase of players with powerful computers you can now only earn significant ammounts from mining with last-gen top CPUs.
The explanation is simple: the total minable blocks per day remain constant but the number of players, and most importantly the number of last-gen top CPUs increased a LOT. To compensate for this, mining becomes more difficult so the blocks just divide between the owners of top computers and the rest get zero right now, or just some scraps from time to time.

The second is trading

While you fight you gain reagents and unlock recipes. With them, you craft NFT items and you can sell them to other players.

Each item you craft for the first time has a quest that will reward you back some of the reagents - so just do them all if you can - you can use the basic ones as upgrade materials and you can sell the better ones on the market. Or if you want to jump to better gear faster just try to sell cheap everything that you have. I would recommend sticking to just crafting the items for the quest and for use and save the reagents for later - they are mostly the same and they become more valuable if used in better recipes. But if you cannon mine, build the most basic recipes (non-elemental) - that require only 1 reagent - and sell them on the market for others to use as fodder/food/filler - many only sell if they are at least upgraded to +1 so the profit is low, 5-10 NCG per item crafted but it adds up.

The recipes that actually sell for profit unlock rather late (there is a list of best in slot items later in this document) so you are more or less stuck with building fodder, but all the types should sell if you price them low. It's a good idea to sell the upgrade materials as +3. If this makes no sense, please check the item upgrading explanation

As soon as it’s available, fight as much as you can in the arena - you gain reagents and you can use them to craft food that buffs you for one level - and they can make all the difference to pass some nasty monsters. 

Stats Explanation

ATK = This is how much damage a character deals to an opponent. Higher ATK means more damage relative to opponent DEF.

DEF = This is how much damage a character can subtract from an opponent's attack. Higher DEF means less damage taken relative to opponent ATK. You can reduce the enemy attacks to 1. The defence is ignored by spells (players can only cast spells from items).

HP = A character's life. When it goes to 0, a character dies. Players should consider their HP and DEF for further survivability.

HIT = Attack Accuracy. The higher a character's HIT stat is, the higher their chances of making a successful attack. If you start noticing that your character is missing a lot against the same level opponents, consider increasing your HIT stat. You can never have 100% to hit, no matter how big is this stat.

CRIT = Critical Rate, or Critical Hit Chance. This is in the form of Percentage, where 100% CRIT means a character will always be dealing a critical strike whenever they make a successful attack. For the moment we don't have any items that increase crit chance, only the tuna can (single-use food/consumable)

There is a lot of misconception that CRIT can bypass an opponent's Evasion Stat. This is wrong. HIT ←→ Evasion is always checked in the formula first before a Critical Strike can occur. This means that even at 100% CRIT, characters can still miss if they don't have enough HIT, or their opponent's Evasion ( or level ) is too high for them.

DOG = Dodge, also called Evasion by many. Player Characters don't have any inherent DOG stat, but mob opponents have this. This is the reason Player Characters would often miss a lot against mob opponents. Higher DOG means less chance of being hit by an enemy attack.

SPD = Speed stat. The higher a character's speed stat is, the more attacks they can make in succession relative to their opponent's own SPD.

Character Power CP

This is the formula: HP * 0.7 + ATK * 10.5 + DEF * 10.5 + SPD * 3 + HIT * 2.3 = CP

Where to get each stat

• Hit comes from necklaces, belts, rings and from the level difference between you and the enemy. Fire dungeon rings also give hit.
• Speed comes from belts, rings and weapons. Fire dungeon chests also give SPD
• Defense comes from rings and armor.
• Attack comes from weapons, belts and rings.
• HP comes from armor, rings.
• Spells come on all slots in the form of increase stat. Damage spells come on rings and swords.

Can't pass a level?

Keep in mind that your chance to hit is greatly reduced versus higher level enemies so have patience, repeat the level and level up!

First thing is to keep on trying. The battles are quite random: you can miss 3 times in a row or you can crit 3 times in a row with the same setup. As long as you are getting the first 2 stars and still getting experience there is nothing to lose in insisting on a level.

If this fails is time to upgrade your gear :).

If you cannon afford any gear upgrades you can craft yourself some food (single-use buff) with the reagents gained from the arena. For very hard levels with big bosses, tuna cans (crit) are very often the best choice but try to use food to compensate for what your gear is lacking.

Item upgrading

You need items of the same color (tier/quality/class) and the same level - so to upgrade a blue sword (T3) to +1 you need any other blue sword. To make it +2 you need another +1 blue sword. You only need one godly piece to use as a base and the rest can be whatever - so use the cheapest you can to reduce the waste.

I would say that as long as you can mine it's better to save the reagents that you have to craft better gear when you unlock recipes and just buy the cheapest items on the market to use for upgrades. If you can't mine at all just craft a ton of the plain recipes (no element) that require just one type of reagent and sell them - people need all sorts of them for upgrading so this should always be a source of income - just check the market to see for how much the others are selling them and price them accordingly. And this way you are also saving other reagents for when you get better crafts, so it's a good middle ground.

Each level up increases the item's main stat by 10 %. It's not influenced by anything else. At levels 4, 7, and 10 the secondary stat also gains a +30% bonus. In the case of the items with spell/effects, they get the 30% increase in power and in the chance to happen.

Upgrade levels 4, 7, and 10 cost NCG in addition to the same quality and level gear. So it's better to avoid leveling up gear over 3 unless you are sure it's worth it.

These are the upgrade costs for that particular level. 1 is T1 - White gear, T2 is Green, T3 is Blue, T4 is Orange and T5 is not yet available.

Take into consideration that while for example, the war belt (the only orange item in the game right now) is the best belt, it requires other war belts to upgrade, since it’s the only one that’s orange. So it gets very expensive to level up so maybe it’s better to just use something else till you can afford it (or until you can craft it yourself...).

Item upgrade costs - Cumulative

This is how my inventory prepared to build a +7 ring looks like:

What gear to buy/use up to level 100

You can reach even level over 100 without spending any NCG. You just need to craft multiple of the best items you can and upgrade the best roll out of those to +3. It's the slowest way, but with enough tries you can eventually beat the stages. You will need to be over leveled most of the time for this to work.

Gear considerations:

• If you take into consideration the quality of the item: T1 white < T2 green < T3 blue < T4 orange
• But if you take into consideration the element: Plain < Fire < Water < Earth < Wind
• A superior element from a lower quality can be better overall and it will be way cheaper to upgrade.
• Dungeon crafts (third crafting option) are incredibly strong even if they have the same visuals as lower tier items.
• All the items in the game are NFTs

Here is a database with all the items in the game. Overall, items are better the later the level they are unlocked so the lower they are on the list.
The exception is the dungeon gear that is the third crafting option for some items - so they look like low-level gear but they are actually endgame - the ones available are highlighted in red.

Below I will try to give some gear ideas that worked for me. Always check the market, you might find something amazing for cheap. You can sort by CP (character power) and take a look around to get a feel at the endgame gear. After a few pages, you should get to affordable gear :)

You can mix and match the stats a lot but getting a bit of everything is always a good idea. If you stack only attack without speed or hit, things might not go that great. Also if you only gather defense and ignore health, a spell from a boss might come along and one shot you, so a bit of balance can be a good starting point.

Gear suggestions to get you to level 100 (avoid upgrading past +3):

• Neck:
  • Budget: Mana necklace - plain should be dirt cheap (even 10 coins) and the hit is the best for the money. If you can afford an elemental one go for as high + hit as you can.
  • The best in slot: Fire dungeon Neck (3rd crafting option) with attack and hit is probably the best. Guardian Necklace Earth or Thin Necklace Wind (cheaper to upgrade) are also great options. I prefer to go with Hit as a secondary stat here but anything can work.
• Weapon:
  • Budget: You can get far using a plain, fire, or water heavy sword and they are often found for as low as 10 NCG. Lately, you can find very low rolled Gladiator Sword Wind or Black Crow Sword Earth for very low prices (under 50).
  • The best in slot: Black Crow Sword Earth and Gladiator Sword Wind are the best swords right now but they are quite expensive if they have a good attack secondary stat. Even better are the spell rolls on swords, the most common being the T1 Dungeon Fire one.
• Armor:
  • Budget: you can find a plain or even elemental Hermes Armor for as low as 10 NCG. Your next best cheap thing could be White Casual Clothes Wind with extra health or defense - you can use what you craft to make them +3.
  • The best in slot: The new Fire Dungeon craft armor can get interesting values (like it's the only chest that can have speed) but overall, the Wind Leather Armor with as much health as possible is still my favorite and can be crafted for free or bought for way lower prices than the Fire one.
• Ring:
  • Budget: 2 x mana ring - you can find them for cheap and the defense will make wonders. You can use them as they are and sell them or use them as reagents when you can afford better ones later on.
  • The best in slot: Dungeon Fire rings are great, especially with hit and attack. Thin Ring Wind gets top stats (is the only ring with speed) and is cheap to upgrade. The best is Guardian Ring Earth. Probably attack is the best stat here but hit (on the fire dungeon ones) or speed (thin wind) is as good, you can use these slots to compensate for what you are missing overall. Personally, I just love spell rings since their cast ignores armor and damages all enemies on screen. Is way harder to pass some levels with tons of enemies per wave without them (btw, usually stacking defense and speed can help there...). But they require gold to craft and they are very rare so they sell for a ton of gold.
• Belt:
  • Budget: You can craft any placeholder belt but your best speed for the buck is a plain war belt - it gives a ton of speed plain at level zero but it’s quite hard to level up so endgame most people go for something else. But for less than 100 gold I find this the best buy - and you should sell it back with not a big loss.
  • The best in slot: War Belt Fire is the endgame belt but it's incredibly expensive to upgrade so I find the simple Belt Wind with a good speed roll upgraded a lot (as high as +7) to do amazing for cheap.

Getting to endgame

There are multiple ways of gearing up that can take you to the endgame and I don't want to cover the possible ways, and after all, this is the beauty of an RPG, to build your own character :)

Here's a more detailed list of the best endgame items right now to help you make some decisions:

Best Items in Nine Chronicles

But if you do want an efficient (time and NCG wise) "recipe": probably the best way is to BUY a good/decent base of a top item from that list and upgrade it yourself, with your own reagents to +4 or even +7. It's also a good idea to check the market often for cheap fodder to gain a lot of time. After that, use the decent rolls you bought to progress up to the point of unlocking the top recipes yourself, craft your own super awesome rolls and upgrade those and get to the endgame.

Example of some top items (FREE crafts) that can get you to 199 + the stage you have to beat to unlock them:

• Belt - T1 wind - stage 139
• Neck - T1 wind - stage 154
• Ring - T1 wind - stage170
• Weapon - T2 wind - stage 174
• Armour - T2 wind - stage 182

If you can mine, just buy directly a top roll of a top item, upgrade it and enjoy the game :)

Fire gear / Fire dungeon

Since the last January updates the t1 (white) fire gear has very good stats in the 3rd crafting option - that require reagents from the fire dungeon and from the arena (past level 200). Except for the belt, they are the best in slot when they get high rolls but they are not really accessible for now since not that many players can craft them - and they also require a lot of materials.

You can however craft your own new fire belt from level 100 and necklace when you are around level 150 (you need to be able to get 2 stars in the 5th stage of the fire dungeon) and with investments in fire gear (Heavy Sword Fire, Hermes Clother Fire, Mana Ring Fire). But take into consideration that each craft requires quite a lot of grinding for the materials and 300 gold. So it's not that plain forward to state that it's worth it.

TL: DR - unless you plan to spend a ton of coins to craft the dungeon gear (which can be best in slot) you can simply ignore this part of the game. You must also have level 200 to craft the armour, weapon, and ring. So, it might be easier to just buy from the market what you need from there and invest to progress in the main campaign first.

Market

I would say there are a few categories of items that people buy/sell:

• cheap weak items to be used as reagents - upgrading them to as high as +3 might increase the interest. You can expect to get somewhere between 5 and 15 NCG per item crafted on average, but prices vary a lot;
• decent priced mid-tier items to be used while gathering coins for top items - but this market is decreasing every day;
• top items with bad rolls, sold for cheap, useful to level up;
• top items with top rolls, worthy to upgrade for the endgame - the prices are generally well worth it but not many can afford them. Most of the players tend to buy a bad roll and use it up to the point where they can craft their own amazing roll. From this category, the most worthy is probably the spell rings since they have a low chance to roll and it might be better to just buy one instead of crafting enough to get it by yourself;
• specific elemental gear for dungeons (so far only fire).

And there is also food, the basic one doesn't quite sell, the better ones (especially 25% crit tuna) might sell if you make it cheap.

From level 160 you can craft the tier 4 food (orange one). Even if you don't intend to sell it, the food is worth gathering since is crucial in helping you pass a difficult stage. 

Multiple characters

The NCG coins are shared on the account but each char has its own energy and inventory.

There is no direct way of transferring items but you can use the market and a friend to sell what you want to transfer to him and then buy it back on your other char.

So if you got the time there is nothing to lose in using all the 3 slots right now, you just gain more resources and potentially more coins. A common strategy is to just make one or two secondary characters with minimum investment to just craft basic fodder and sell it on the market.