Ancient Cave Tips

Step 1: Learn to reach B28 with no gear

• How deep you can dive in the cave depends on 3 things: strong equipment, healing spells, and level
• Whether red chests give strong equipment is down to luck
• Also, because of a ROM bug, red chests from B10 on have no shields, helmets, rings, or jewels
• So strong shields, helmets, rings, and jewels can only be collected from blue chests
• You can take blue chest equipment home and bring it into the next dive, so your collection grows the more you dive
• Until you have blue chest equipment, you cannot even reach B28 without opening chests and leveling up
• First aim for B28 with no gear, and keep bringing blue chest items home with Providence
• B28 is the goal because Providence appears from B21, and you have about a 99% chance of finding it by B28

Step 2: Once blue chest gear builds up, avoid battles and collect efficiently

• Once your equipment starts to come together, you can reach B28 even when you avoid battles and rush through
• The more battles you avoid, the shorter each dive gets, so you can dive more times
• How to collect blue chests is covered in "Collecting Blue Chests Efficiently"

Step 3: On dives with no blue chest, scout the deeper floors

• On a dive with no blue chest item by B28, you have nothing to bring home and nothing to lose, so even after finding Providence, dive as far as you can
• Learning which enemies appear on deep floors and how to beat them will help when you aim for B99 in Step 4
• However, enemies get suddenly stronger from certain floors, so watch out for these 4 floors

Step 4: Aim for B99

• Strong equipment and high stats alone will not beat the Master on B99. You need the weapons for the job.
• The essential weapons are the Dekar blade, Myth blade, and Old sword, whose IP skills cut a fraction of the enemy's HP
• The fraction-cutting weapons mainly come from red chests, so whether you get them on a given dive is down to luck
• Reaching B99 also depends on finding healing spells on that dive and leveling up smoothly
• So even with your blue chest equipment complete, there is no need to force your way to B99 every time
• Dive several times, and go after the Master when you get a lucky dive
• How to beat the Master is covered on the "Master Battle" page

Step 5: Collect the Iris Treasures

• The more Iris Treasures you collect, the lower the chance that one you do not have yet appears
• This is because if a type you already brought home is picked, that floor's roll is a miss
• The last type has only about a 0.22% chance per floor, and even a full dive from B1 to B98 finds it only about 19% of the time
• So even after you beat the Master, you will most likely not have finished collecting them
• On the other hand, the chance of finding Iris Treasures does not change with floor depth, so there is no need to aim for deep floors
• If you open every chest down to B28 and find no Iris Treasure, it is efficient to reset and start over
• The specifics are covered in "Collecting Iris Treasures Efficiently"
• Collect all 9 Iris Treasures and beat the Master, and you have fully cleared the Ancient Cave

Key Points

• Nearly all blue chest equipment has an element
• Especially with weapons, the deeper you go, the more you need to consider how they match up against enemy elements
• IP skills are also simple, with a few exceptions: they either make elemental attacks or block them
• Blue chests have no armor Arty can equip, so be careful
• Except for Selan and Tia, each character has only 1 ring they can equip
• Rings and jewels are merely better than nothing, so they are not essential

Must-Have Items

Maxim

Guy

Selan

Arty

Dekar

Basic Policy

• Avoid battles at all costs
• Do not go out of your way to open red chests either
• If you already have Providence when you find a blue chest, leave right away
• If you do not have Providence when you find a blue chest, keep going until you find it
• Either way, if you have not found a blue chest by B28, leave or reset
• Save before entering the cave

Notes

• Skipping red chests also means missing any Iris Treasures inside them
• So this approach is for when you only want to collect blue chests efficiently
• If you also want Iris Treasures, open every chest and avoid enemies
• Even on a dive with no find by B28, if your goal is to scout deep-floor enemies, you can keep diving without leaving or resetting
• However, early on with no blue chest equipment, you cannot even reach B28 without opening chests and leveling up, so you have to proceed carefully

Why This Works

• Blue chests appear at about 2% per chest
• Floor depth does not matter
• Contents are drawn from 41 types at nearly equal chance, also regardless of floor depth
• To collect many, passing through lots of floors matters more than depth
• Providence appears from B21, and you have about a 99% chance of finding it by B28

Basic Policy

• Open every chest
• Do not miss any treasure that appears
• If you already have Providence when you find an Iris Treasure, leave right away
• If you do not have Providence when you find an Iris Treasure, keep going until you find it
• Either way, if you have not found an Iris Treasure by B28, leave or reset
• Save before entering the cave

Why This Works

• Iris Treasures appear at about 2% per floor
• Floor depth does not matter
• You cannot tell which chest on a floor holds it
• If you miss a treasure that appears, that type will not appear again on that dive
• Shallower floors have shorter battles and are more time-efficient
• Providence appears from B21, and you have about a 99% chance of finding it by B28

Overview

• Ways to heal are limited inside the cave
• Healing spells come from red chests, so you are not guaranteed to get them
• Healing items are also limited to what you find
• If you keep using attack spells, MP soon runs short too
• Ways to restore MP are even more limited than for HP
• So learn the ways to heal that do not rely on healing spells or items

Restoring HP

Restoring MP

Appearance

• A real blue chest is dark indigo with a copper edge
• A Blue Mimic is bright blue with a pale orange edge
• A real blue chest has a white highlight on the blue part of its lid, but a Blue Mimic does not
• Blue Mimics do not move or react when you approach
• The difference is clear side by side, but hard to judge when you see only 1

Blue Chest	Blue Mimic

Floors

• Blue Mimics appear only on B29 to B31
• Most blue boxes you see on these 3 floors are Blue Mimics (about 16 times as many appear as real blue chests)
• Blue boxes on other floors are all real blue chests