Ancient Institute

North of Eastern Eiheids

This area is small compared to the other maps so far but the chests you’ll find here contain new Skill Books for your characters. There are also new enemies that you’ll find here that are part of a quest from Santeroule’s bulletin board (Open Season for the Otsharks) and possible new item drops as well. They’re not difficult to defeat so don’t worry about clearing the path on your way to the Ancient Institute.

Ancient Institute

The Ancient Institute isn’t that large; there’s a savepoint in one of the rooms on the west and it has two chests containing a Wind Armlet and Parchment. Go down the ramp towards the last room to the north to trigger a cutscene. There’s another chest there containing a The Founder’s Signets, Vol. 1 but you can’t loot it immediately until you complete the scene. Once the conversation’s over, loot the chest and you’ll have to leave for Central Resulia to ask for Victor’s help on the matter.

Tip #1: Before heading to Central Resulia, you may want to check some of the Quests you can complete by backtracking to the other towns so you can also trigger the Private Actions unlocked up to this point. Returning to Central Resulia will trigger a major plot development so clearing all possible Private Actions and quests now will be a great idea.

Tip #2: Talk to Welch back in Myiddok to trigger two new sidequests from her. (SQ005 Grand Designs and SQ006 Happy Fun Bunny Time)

Completing the former will unlock the Augmentation specialty and will open the Augmentation option in the Item Creation menu. This type of Creation combines items with pieces of equipment, thereby increasing the equipment's attributes or adding factors to it. By leveling up certain specialties, you can increase the number of times that pieces of equipment can be augmented.

In the other hand, completing the latter will unlock the Synthesis specialty and open the corresponding Item Creation menu. Selecting multiple items in your inventory and combining them to create different ones is called Synthesis. Although it is a convenient specialty to have, it does have a downside; you will never know exactly what the resulting item will be until it has actually been made. That said, it’s recommended to save your game first before doing high-quality synthesis attempts.