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The Fashion Mage

Discussion in 'MapleLegends Journeys' started by Luu, May 18, 2021.

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    With his path settled, Luu heads to the desert. Unfortunately Luu is well past the level necessary to travel there for a particular quest chain, so he is forced to actually pay for the journey. So, first to Orbis, and then to Ariant. The trip to Orbis is quiet (and perhaps the return trip will be on channel 1 in the hopes that it's not totally deserted), and the trip to Ariant the same.

    Of course Luu also forgot about buying inventory slots, so in the meantime he bought a bigger use inventory.

    Once Luu arrived in Ariant, he resolved himself to clear all the cards on the areas local to Ariant before moving on to the northern road. First, he decided to tackle the cacti. First went the junior cacti:
    92.png
    In clearing the upper area to keep the lower areas spawning, he got a few cards outof the cacti:
    93.png
    Additionally, some good equipment came of all of this:
    94.png
    From there, Luu moved on to the next area to get the remaining cards for cacti. Fortunately it didn't take too long:
    95.png
    Luu moved on to the next map, which presented him with royal cacti. Luu took the same approach as he has been with everything these days- hit everything with thunder once, let them collect around him, and then spam thunder until the entire crowd perished. While this was economical for his MP, it was rather brutal on his health; if these cacti weren't dropping orange potions so frequently he surely would have run out by now. While this did get him an early card:
    96.png
    There was an issue- he was taking too much damage for his orange potions to last. So, he cut off early and decided to try the other path. This led him through some desert rabbits. Luu killed many of these sad, squeaky balloons. The female rabbits gave up their cards first (given that there are more of them in this spot):
    97.png
    Followed by the males a bit after:
    98.png
    With that, Luu moved on. The next area contained a good number of... weird lizard things wearing scarves and earmuffs. All in a nice, bunched-up group. How nice!

    Thunder is proving particularly effective. The ear plug pleads did not last long:
    99.png
    Luu headed over to the adjacent map, expecting scarf pleads, but alas- just more ear plug pleads. One more in, and he found some bellamoas. They absolutely refused to drop any cards, but they did drop some vital equipment:
    100.png
    The blue morrican! That was the last piece Luu needed for his next equipment set! He rushed back to Ellinia as quickly as he could; he still needs to make these blue gloves green, but that's easily done with the emerald ore he kept lying around. He talks with Karcasa, who flings him to a random spot in Victoria Island. Fortunately he lands in Kerning City; he takes a cab to Perion, secures an emerald, and then over to Ellinia.
    101.png
    Remarkably these green gloves are... yellow. That isn't actually a bad thing; the yellow doros robe will work well with them, then. Jr. Cacti drop the yellow doros robe, so it seems a return trip to the desert will be in order.
     
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    Before Luu could return to the desert, he had to go buy some additional potions; as it turns out being a mage means burning through your MP potions like they're water. So, as Luu waits for his train to NLC, he decides to take a look at what to expect from the desert:
    102.png
    Those are some useful items! Three different robes, the level 25 staff, level 30 shoes (dark, no less, conferring the most INT gain- Luu will generally want the dark outfits above all others for that reason), earrings for levels 25 and 30, and a mystic shield! Since the gloves turned out more yellow than green, the yellow doros robe seems ideal here as the next upgrade. It'd also work well at level 25 with yellow windshoes and ocean mesanas (which Luu already has). Heck, the blue trim will even have it match the blue jester, dropped by wild boars. Only downside is not boosting INT, but that's not really all that big a deal at the moment. Incidentally, the black mage robes are dropped by nothing, so that is an option for Luu to purchase- that'll go well with those black magicshoes.

    The most immediately relevant of all of those drops would be the mystic shield, so Luu resolves to obtain that first. The yellow doros robe will come second, since that can be immediately equipped (Luu already has an ice wand). A couple of equipment drops in and...
    103.png
    Bingo! Except it low-rolled so badly it doesn't even provide INT. Luu tried for a brief bit to try and get another, but his patience ran out before it dropped again. Alas; at least he takes less damage with it equipped. That and Luu can replace it later with an esther shield. Luu moved on to Jr. Cacti, to try and nab that robe.

    He was almost immediately rewarded:
    104.png
    Luu walks in, clears the top floor, immediate black magicshoes (with +3 INT!). Clears bottom floor, immediate yellow doros robe (low roll but whatever).
    105.png
    It... sorta works? Not the greatest look ever, but it shouldn't last too long. That just leaves some (optional) earrings, as well as that wizard staff. However, the bunnies seem to have deplorable drop rates. Luu needs to hunt for his level 25 shoes anyway, so he decides to look elsewhere. Before he goes, he decides to wrap up the three remaining card sets. First, the royal cacti:
    106.png
    (missed a picture of one)
    Then the bellamoas (at this point having a timer going on Deo, in the hopes of getting anything of benefit):
    107.png
    Following that, the scarf pleads (the Deo timer was lost when someone else showed up before Luu could return, though Luu did show up right around when they killed Deo and started up another):

    ...well, there's no image here, because the scarf pleads refused to give up a single card. Sure, not a lot of them in the one enemy pool where they're present that Luu has access to, but nonetheless, terrible drop rate. Luu calls off the scarf plead hunt for tonight; surely they'll actually drop cards tomorrow?
     
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    Another day, another hunt for scarf plead cards. Firstly, Luu went over to see if he couldn't nab a Deo timer; might as well make this more interesting. Along the way, Luu decided to try at the scarf pleads, and remarkably they produced a card!
    108.png
    Luu had little issue setting up a timer for Deo, and went to killing scarf pleads while waiting. Remarkably he did net a brown doros robe from the ear plug pleads... which would be great, if it matched the rest of his ensemble. Since it doesn't, Luu has little use for it, despite the +3 INT it provides. This is why Luu wants to stick with dark gear sets from this point out- maximizing (useful) stat gains from equipment. Just because he's grinding for every piece of equipment and insisting on wearing lovely equipment sets, doesn't mean he's not trying to put forth an effort to actually have good stats. Hence why he only keeps his LUK at the next equipment set's required LUK + 5. Luu picked up a red matty as well, but that similarly is likely to go unused. Luu plans on making an effort, if he can find whatever drops them, of making an effort to maximize LUK on a (not-ugly) pair of earrings and a (not-ugly) cape to try and mitigate base LUK issues. Applying INT scrolls to (higher-leveled) equipment is also the plan.

    In the meantime, the scarf pleads at least provided some cards;
    109.png
    And Deo didn't disappoint:
    110.png
    While trying for a Deo card, a fellow name spiff came around asking if Deo had spawned, and if they could have an opportunity to try for a card if Luu wasn't too busy at it. Luu decided to let them have it; Luu already got two cards today, and these aren't the most important cards that Luu needs.

    Unfortunately spiff was rewarded with nothing; a bummer. Hopefully they'll get lucky later tonight, but Luu called it quits.
     
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    So we're back at scarf pleads again, while maintaining a Deo timer. Maybe this would be more interesting if we maintained two Deo timers? Luu thought about it, and decided to go with no Deo timers; better to just get these stupid scarf pleads over with.

    Perhaps that was the secret?
    111.png
    Freedom from the scarf pleads! Luu can now move on... but to what? In the meantime Luu tried more male desert rabbits for a better shield, when a card of theirs dropped. He did recall that fellow from yesterday asking to buy them for 500k each, so he whispered them real quick and had them come over to grab their card.
    112.png
    While accepting the money does technically go against the challenge, it doesn't if Luu promptly squirrels it away in storage and never touches it again. So, a new rule in that regard: Luu can accept funds from other characters as long as those funds are never used pertaining to the challenge itself. The money might be useless to Luu, but Luu can always make new characters who can actually use the money. In the meantime, Luu tried for a bit longer at the rabbits before returning to Ariant to contemplate his next course of action.

    Luu decided to slay some Fire Boars, to gain access to Sleepywood. He manages to get to the Burnt Land 2 before encountering fire boars, and hence must slay them here.
    113.png
    This might end poorly. Remarkably, the boars were more than eager to give up their cards, twice dropping cards in pairs (and Luu failing to get a picture of the one that dropped as a single):
    114.png
    With that handled (some equips were gathered but nothing really of note; just a crossbow that sold for a lot and some thief armor), Luu decided to peek in at Sleepywood from the Perion entrance. He encountered a new variety of mushroom he needed to slay before he could continue along his way. He retreated to Ellinia; surely a tree dungeon had horny mushrooms and not curse eyes? In fact, he found exactly what he was looking for in Tree Dungeon 7.

    Tree Dungeon 7 felt a bit too crowded with slimes for Luu's tastes, and he decided to switch over to Tree Dungeon 2. Ended up getting various pieces of equipment:
    115.png
    As well as yellow windshoes (which Luu failed to grab a picture of, apparently!)! These are exactly what Luu needs for his level 25 equipment set. Now all he's missing are the hat and staff, and he knows exactly what drops those. Remarkably not a single horny mushroom card in all of this.

    Luu decided, with those new shoes acquired, to call it a night. He remains undecided on whether he'll continue trying with the horny mushroom cards, or move on to wild boars for a blue jester hat and blue mushrooms for a wizard staff.
     
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    Luu was at an impasse: continue hunting for cards, or move on to equipment hunting? Luu decided that, at the very least, he could net himself the complete horny mushroom set; surely it wouldn't take that long?

    Things were going rather well, but then Luu had a brief power outage that cost him the photos of the first two cards that he picked up. Rather unfortunate, really. The remaining 3 cards did not take too long to acquire:
    116.png
    With that done, Luu went to the first of two locations he needs to grind to secure a necessary piece of equipment: the Blue Mushroom Forest.

    Remarkably that only took like 5 minutes:
    117.png
    Luu headed over to the wild boars next, where he was mostly met with disappointment. Did get an early pair of nice earrings (note that earrings and capes don't really follow the progression thing because they literally don't matter, so it's fine):
    118.png
    And a circle-winded staff!
    119.png
    Unfortunately, no luck on the hat. Luu would have to wait until tomorrow.
     
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    Back to the land of wild boars Luu went, to hopefully get that hat sooner rather than later. At this point Luu had cycled through a good chunk, if not all, of the other wild boar drops. Fortunately they're all rather expensive items that sell for a pretty penny, so Luu's been making some serious bank doing this.

    Of course, Luu also spends over a million mesos on MP potions every few days, so making this much money is actually required just to be able to afford potions. Fortunately mana bulls will soon be in Luu's future, and that should start cutting costs rather significantly- the joys of percentage-based MP healing. Though that will have to wait until Luu hits 5000 MP, and right now he sits at roughly 2500. Halfway there. Though the plan at the moment is to hit about 303 INT and then start MP washing, so that should come sooner rather than later.

    MP washing a mage this early is silly. Then again, so is having a mage with LUK. Remarkably, Luu actually doesn't have an awful stat distribution at the moment:
    120.png
    With only 38 LUK, Luu hasn't invested too crazy into LUK. With the potential to heavily scroll some earrings or a cape for LUK (and the scrolls for both hopefully being readily available), and assuming Luu goes with capes that actually match any outfit he plans on wearing and not a yellow cape that he'd have to spend NX to make go away and that he has the patience to grind enough capes and enough scrolls to hit all 5 of the 10% scrolls on both items, he could easily muster out an extra 30 LUK on earrings and cape alone. Assuming that you can't use equipment to meet its own stat requirements (that is, an item cannot give you the stats necessary to wear said item if you equip an item that also gives you those stats first, equip the restricted item, and then unequip the other), that would let Luu only need a mere... 90 LUK to wear the ideal equipment set. That's still a lot of LUK. If it is possible to meet equipment requirements with the items themselves that need them, then this falls to about 71 LUK.

    Either way, that's a lot of LUK to have on a mage in ML. Except! There are rings! The T10 monster book ring yields another 10 LUK, pushing that to 80 or 61. Fiddling about with the Horntail Pendant can push that even lower (though Luu isn't quite sure by how much- surely at least 10?). It might actually be reasonable for Luu to push down his base LUK to only, like, 50. He gets 32 INT from the resulting outfit he can equip before scrolling for more INT, plus the 10 INT from the ring and the (presumably) 10 INT from the pendant. Sure, this is still all things considered a lower level of INT than what someone who poured literally all of their AP into INT would get, but Luu should be able to, through equipment bonuses alone, make up every point wasted in LUK with an INT.

    It just might require a lot of scrolling.

    Luu has a moment of self-reflection on all of this: why do I actually care so much about all of this absurd stat nonsense when my goal is glorious fashion? Well, the reasons are twofold.
    1. Luu wants to be a mage that destroys with power and splendor. He has the splendor grind going quite well right now, but he can't skimp on the power.
    2. At one point Luu actually has to obtain Horntail and possibly even Pink Bean equipment. That's only happening if he can actually survive those fights and justify being a part of them. Taking this as "the casual approach" (4 INT/1 LUK every level, no washing whatsoever) will ensure neither of those happen. Besides, washing is trivial as a mage because there's no investment in a stat that does nothing other than provide a means to wash. All that matters is allocating the necessary AP resets to do so.
    The goal is fun, really. Fun is fashion. Fun is also actually obtaining all of this fashion.

    Back to the wild boars, they continued to drop all the wrong equips. Remarkably Luu did get this gem of a hat:
    121.png
    However, it is brown. Brown doesn't work with black and white (dark starlight), now does it? The first haul didn't amount to much:
    122.png
    The circle-winded staff in this haul did replace the previous one he acquired from here, which is nice. What wasn't nice was that his use inventory was filling up really badly with scrolls he didn't need and couldn't sell. A problem to be figured out later. In the meantime, the next haul:
    123.png
    Luu unfortunately got rather tired working on the third haul, and decided to go to bed. Surely tomorrow the boars will drop the desired hat so Luu can stop contemplating minimizing LUK and when to start washing and other such frivolous things and instead awe with his new outfit and search out new places to hunt.

    And it is at this point that I realized that I cannot count and my section numbering has looped in on itself considerably.
     
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    Back to the boar hunting Luu went. If nothing else he was making quite the profit. In the meantime, he hit level 45, and was rudely interrupted with some telepathic message about potentially traveling back in time over in Ludibrium. Not that Luu plans on heading over there for a while. Thanks, telepathic message. Level 45 means another purchased inventory slot, and this one definitely must go towards use.

    Almost immediately afterwards, it finally dropped!
    124.png
    Luu could finally transition to his new outfit!
    125.png
    Luu contemplated his next goal. While he could potentially push into Sleepywood now, it seems better to perhaps wrap up some other cards first, like Stirges and Jr. Neckis. Luu made his way to Kerning City (after selling what he did get from those boars) to deal with those Stirges.

    Luu regretted this immediately.

    Turns out stirges are the worst thing to actually fight. They fly about, making them impossible to hit half the time, their drops get scattered everywhere, they only seem to drop lemons... actually the worst things to fight.
    126.png
    Luu got his cards and got the hell out of there as fast as he could. It was only after he got out that he realized he was being contacted telepathically- apparently he was to have his monster ring upgraded for collecting 30 card sets. Fantastic! A permanent stat boost is always good to have. However, he would have to bring one garnet. Fortunately, Luu had been keeping a ton of garnet ore on-hand in case he ever had to make his ocean mesanas into blood mesanas, so that was easily arranged. That resolved, Luu went on to the swamp.

    To note, all the Jr. Necki in the first area do not spawn in after a while and are depleted by Ligators, so Luu does not need to defeat them in The Swamp of Despair 1 to have access to where it leads, including the Swamp of Jr. Necki (which Luu can access via slimes). Luu does need the ligator card set, though. This didn't take too long:
    127.png
    From there, Luu went on to the Swamp of Jr. Necki. They were a bit more of a pain, but Luu managed to get through them as well:
    128.png
    At which point Luu ran out of MP potions, so back to NLC he went. Fortunately he was already in Kerning City, making the trip there seamless. The bounty he had to sell from all those card hunts:
    129.png
    Luu then decided, after evaluating his scroll collection, which were worth keeping and which were not. He kept the ones that could actually be worth some money (cape INT, generally speaking) and decided to toss the rest. The remaining ones were funneled into storage for whenever Luu has the care to do things outside of this challenge (i.e. sell them and stick the money in storage or onto another character not doing this challenge). From there, he ventured into Sleepywood. What could await him there?
     
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    Luu made his way to Sleepywood, rather surprised that it required so little effort. He recalls there being curse eyes around here in his childhood (and otherwise could never get out of Sleepywood upon entering), but no such difficulties arose this time. He wandered his way into the ant tunnels and found lots and lots of fungus. Dead fungus. Zombie fungus. Remarkably no ants.

    Amazingly, Luu managed to score 3 cards within just a few minutes of entering.

    Horny mushroom cards.

    Luu slaughtered many of them in revenge. Eventually, he did get a zombie mushroom to drop a card as well:
    130.png
    In the meantime Luu thought on what he pondered before, about boosting his LUK through equipment. He realized that scrolling earrings for INT boosts both magic attack and INT; LUK scrolling could not claim the same. Hence, he would gain more from scrolling earrings for INT than he would for LUK. Additionally, it would seem in some reading that equipment can compensate for its own stat requirements, so long as the equipment could be equipped in the first place. That'll make things easier.

    After about the 10th horny mushroom card, Luu got tired and went to sleep. A bit unfortunate, given the general paucity of this journal entry, but the alternative would be no sleeping. No sleeping is not an option.
     
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    So, Luu returned to his tunnel conquest. Naturally, he promptly got a horny mushroom card.

    After some muffled shouting, the zombie mushrooms finally gave up their cards as well:
    131.png
    Important to note from the zombie mushroom drop table:
    132.png
    That and that alone (maybe? Might mandate silver windshoes too, to go with the blue robe) would be sufficient for Luu to equip new stuff! Luu ventured deeper to kill more of these zombie mushrooms.

    First haul:
    133.png
    Lots of weapons, some level 40 mage gloves that Luu won't be using over their color, but no wand. Luu heads over to the sauna to refresh and sell this stuff before returning.

    Second haul:
    134.png
    More mage equipment, all wrong color. Still no wand. Luu passes out in the sauna.
     
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    Luu woke up, horribly sweaty and dehydrated. Hell, for a moment he thought he was dying. Don't fall asleep in saunas, people.

    Having managed to rehydrate, Luu went back to hunting for a wand. At one point Luu decided to sit down and rest, and look through his monster book.

    At that point he noticed that fire boars drop these wands, too, as well as some toy soldier shoes (level 35 black shoes). It seems this zombie mushroom hunt is a waste of time, or at least an impractical usage of time. Luu, annoyed, decides to at least see how deep he can go before leaving. He made it to the deep ant tunnel 1 before being thwarted by jr. boogies and evil eyes. He killed his way back out of the ant tunnels (how do other classes deal with this place? The mob density is just so high) and went to Perion. He ventured as far into the burnt land as he could go, which was burnt land 4, where he encountered... monkeys?

    Well, guess monkey cards are also on the table then. Especially after they threw banana peels at Luu; he wasn't about to let that slide.

    The first trip proved very fruitful:
    135.png
    136.png
    Notably in that list of items- the toy soldier shoes and a crystal wand. The wand has a bit low magic attack, but the shoes are solid. The brown jester doesn't quite fit with this outfit, so that'll be sold with the rest. The second blue lutia also has inferior stats to the first... at which point Luu realized that there was no reason he even kept the first, if he insists on wearing full dark outfits from level 30 onwards to maximize INT. So, that too was discarded. Luu also had to switch over to white potions; he drank his entire orange potion supply in that single trip.

    On the second trip, Luu managed to secure the last lupin card:
    137.png
    And with that, he could venture deeper into the burnt lands, to burnt land 5. Haul 2:
    138.png
    Another crystal wand (with better stats), worse shoes, and yet again no wand. Luu began to wonder whether all wands starting with an M are cursed to take utterly forever to drop.
     
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    Luu continued his hunt for the mithril wand. The next haul:
    139.png
    (note that all item hauls will be done this way from this point forward because the monster density is just too high for it to even be visible where the dropped items are, assuming I even noticed that they dropped)
    Luu kept this up for a bit more, until he noticed a problem: he was burning through white potions faster than he was obtaining them. Additionally, he already received everything other than a mithril wand that he wanted. So... why not push into evil eye cards while still trying to get the wand? Will also refill white potion counts, given that zombie mushrooms drop them and do a lot less damage than lupins and fire boars.

    So back to the ant tunnels Luu went. Surely this will only help things. The first haul:
    140.png
    Nothing really of note in this batch; not even an evil eye card so far. Since they do not drop, Luu also purchased some return scrolls, because the walk back to Sleepywood every time is quite tedious.

    So, Luu went back for the ant tunnels... before realizing he walked out without actually buying the scrolls he said he was about to buy. "Dammit." Luu went back, spent even more money to get back into the sauna again (ignoring the snide look on the hotel staff's faces), and procured some scrolls.

    If Luu weren't so easily able to generate mesos on demand, one would think this wasting of money to be a detriment. This time, he managed to get all the evil eye cards:
    141.png
    He even managed to get a Jr. Boogie card:
    142.png
    Though he needed 4 more of those to move on from this place. Rather than try and get Jr. Boogie cards here, he decides to head back to an earlier section of the tunnels to focus more on the wand. The next haul:
    143.png
    Surely the wand will drop?

    Surely?
    144.png
    It did! Finally! Luu could finally wear his n-
    145.png
    The shoes, they do not work. That's a bit of a problem. The only apparent fix to this is to find the silver windshoes but... what drops those?

    "Luu."

    Luu is startled from this omniscient voice booming from the walls of the ant tunnels.

    "Luu, you have reached a fork in this road. You can either choose the easy path, and face foes that you otherwise would not face on this challenge to yield your shoes, or you can choose the hard path and force yourself to comply with the full extent of this challenge."

    Luu hesitates. "I'll go with... the hard, unless that turns out to be too unworkable, in which case the easy."

    The voice replies: "Then journey to a far-away land where you can seek more training. The training will provide the shoes."

    Luu knows of a few locations in the world that are within the scope of where he would care to go. He recalls hearing of a dojo in Mu Lung; perhaps that is what he meant?

    Worst comes to worst, Luu gives up and chooses the easy option, so Luu figures to take a quick trip over to Mu Lung to see if anything resembles what he heard. Remarkably he finds a training area off to the right side. Perfect!

    ...these bastards hurt. A lot. This isn't happening at this level, that's for sure. Luu shouted for the voice to tell him the easy way.

    He was promptly kicked out of Mu Lung.

    Distraught, he wandered around in Orbis.

    "Luu."

    Luu stopped; the voice spoke again.

    "If you wish to take the easy path, talk to the polar bear. You want the diet option."

    Luu had seen this polar bear lying around before. He sought this bear in Orbis, but no luck. He did recall seeing this bear back on Victoria Island, so he returned there. He promptly found said bear in Ellinia.

    The bear promptly shoved some vile beverage directly into Luu's face. Luu spit out the nasty garbage directly into the bear's face and walked away. A loud rumble came immediately from the trees.

    "What are you doing, you fool?"

    Luu shouted back, "I'm not drinking that nasty crap, even if I can't get my shoes that way! I'd rather suffer."

    There was a pause, before the voice spoke again.

    "Fine. There is a middle option. There is a shoe craftsman in Sleepywood who can assist you with your shoe problem."

    Luu traveled there quickly. It seems that he will need a silver plate, leather, screws, and money. Screws means a bronze and steel plate.

    The thought of steel ore gave Luu flashbacks to those dreaded snails. He shook it off, and opened up his monster book to see what would be the most practical thing to hunt for those required materials. It seems ghost stumps and wooden masks would provide the silver and bronze ores, respectively. As for steel ore... Luu didn't really have too many interesting options for that. Fire boars could, but Luu was exhausted of fire boars. Blue snails were not happening. Dark stumps? Sure, dark stumps for those. Might as well double down on the Perion hunting. The dark stumps first, and the ghost stumps second.

    Luu made his way over to Perion, and then to East Rocky Mountain 2. He was promptly disappointed; there was just no monster density to speak of, and no way that Luu would ever recoup his MP costs. It just wasn't happening. However, dark axe stumps also drop steel ore, so he ventured deeper. After killing dark axe stumps for a short bit, however, Luu realized that he needed leather as well.

    There really is no escaping the fire boars. Luu sulked to his ultimate fate- Burnt Land 5. Things were mostly uneventful, though steel accumulated faster than leather (with Luu heading over to some ordinary pigs for the remaining leather- cheaper that way). However, this did happen:
    146.png
    Going to be awkward when the level 40 staff is worse than the level 38 wand, but not much can be done about that.

    Luu fell asleep before he could even finish acquiring all the steel.
     
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    Here Luu is, yet again, grinding through some large crowd of enemies hoping for steel ore. If it weren't for the fact that Luu can blast so many at once with thunder, perhaps his motivation would have waned by now.

    Eventually Luu left there with 10 steel ore, 22 leather, and 1 silver. He went off to get the remaining silver and bronze ore (excavation site 1), and then the remaining leather (whatever that pig mini-dungeon is called). Luu recalled that he never got the rocky mask card set, so he figured to get that first.

    This proved to not be a total waste of time:
    147.png
    One card is better than no card. Luu filled up on bronze ore at that point and moved on. Remaining was silver and leather, and the ghost stumps did not like dropping much in terms of silver. Perhaps another target? Luu explored his monster book.

    The only thing that jumped out was to do both red and blue snails outside of Lith Harbor.

    The horror.

    To kill some time Luu set up a Mano timer; gotta try and get something out of this. Sure enough...
    148.png
    The card is nice, but the gloves have an interesting quirk- they work with the dark robe. If Luu can find a black jester, then he could switch up the outfit from blue to black and take advantage of that extra INT.

    In the meantime, turns out thunder alleviates pretty much all of the pain from grinding snails. They yield the silver (and steel, even) in short order, though not without dropping two (!) metal wands first: Luu would have taken a picture if not for the merciless slaughter that ensued. Luu merely needs the leather to make those shoes. On the way over to a nearby pig hunting spot, he netted another Mano card:
    149.png
    From there, he made his way to the famous pig beach, and started fetching that leather (and maybe an iron pig card set?)

    Turns out the iron pigs take forever to spawn and the rest of the pigs are way too sparsely spread. Luu decided to give it a brief go as the Mano timer was coming up, and then ditch this for the mini dungeon once he takes one more shot at Mano. This did actually get another card:
    150.png
    And then from there, one more shot at Mano after getting the remaining leather yielded the final card:
    151.png
    (the hat, while neat, would've been only to sell even if he were still on the level 20 hat set)
    With some shuttling around, Luu finally had his outfit:
    152.png
    With that done... what next? For Luu's next outfit, he needs the black lutia gloves. He hasn't encountered anything so far that dropped them, though. In fact, he's almost exhausted everything reasonable in Victoria Island.

    Perhaps Orbis? Lots of untouched ground there for Luu to explore. Perhaps the tower first? Luu makes his way there. Inside he finds these flying orbs that seem intent on pushing him about. He makes quick work of them:
    153.png
    He heads lower and finds larger, more annoying varieties. He attempts to collect their cards, but falls asleep instead.
     
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    Luu woke up after a longer-than-normal nap; fortunately it didn't take long for him to recall his current goal: get the cards for the stupid orbs that keep shooting at him.

    It didn't take long, fortunately:
    154.png
    No gloves yet. Perhaps further down? He eventually ran into some blue orbs that would shoot cold beams at him. Joy. At least they do less contact damage.

    Gave up the cards about just as quick, though:
    155.png
    Two floors down Luu reached some red orbs; same story as before. Technically they also were on the 12th floor, but Luu was able to circumvent them through teleporting and avoiding platforms. The nice thing about all of these colorful orbs is that they, unlike the grey ones, don't resist lightning. They, too, fell quickly:
    156.png

    Luu descended further, until it got quite chilly as he neared the ground. He encountered... fluffy orbs that lacked guns.

    Lots of orbs in this tower. Things started going as before:
    157.png
    Luu realized something, though, rather early in- he had run out of MP potions.

    NLC being the go-to destination for potions would suck a bit less if the journey weren't so long. Luu sold his (rather limited) haul while he was there:
    158.png
    The leatties eventually gave up the rest of the cards (hit copy instead of paste on one, so image lost forever):
    159.png
    Luu journeyed deeper, until he encountered darker puffballs. Those, too, must perish. And so they did.
    160.png
    Deeper still, Luu eventually reached... penguins? Sure, penguins. The penguins were slaughtered for their insolence of standing in Luu's way. Not that they didn't fight back; those penguins hurt. In fact, despite getting one card:
    161.png
    The penguins were doing so much damage that they were eating away at his white potion count. Luu decided to come back here later. He grabbed a wand m. atk 100% scroll; the wizard wand he picked up... whenever ago was one attack short of a new circle-winded staff he picked up in the tower, which would make it a downgrade.

    In the meantime, Luu decided to stick with Orbis for now, venturing into the cloud park area. There he discovered star pixies. They perished in quick order (the picture of the third card lost to Luu's inability to pay attention):
    162.png
    And yet, nothing he encountered so far drops the gloves he desires. He briefly tried his hand at some cute critters in a nearby colorful garden, but gave up as he got tired. Tomorrow is another day.
     
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    Those dastardly penguins will get what's coming to them!...Eventually!
     
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    Luu kept up the effort on the colorful critters in Orbis. Remarkably, one of them almost immediately dropped a Black Jester. That allowed Luu to make a lateral upgrade:
    163.png
    The gloves match the rest of the outfit now. Luu thought on heading back to the garden, but they too are eating at his potion cost a bit too much at the moment. Luu realized that he's at a bit of an impasse. He could continue on dealing with the various critters in the cloud park, but he'd drain his potion supply, and he's not sure what progress he would make doing so- the cloud park is ultimately a dead end. The only options that seem particularly worthwhile at the moment are to either push further into Ariant, or venture to Ludibrium. Perhaps Ariant, then? Seems like it could at least go somewhere, not that Luu didn't already spoil this decision by failing to grab a photo of his new outfit in Orbis and instead taking it in Ariant. Anyway, he exited the north gate, and encountered some... meercats. Well, at least they seem more appropriate for the desert than pleads.

    Also Luu realized he never expanded his inventory at level 50; he decided to go with etc.

    The meercats did at least prove kind:
    164.png
    With that out of the way, Luu ventured further into the desert, eventually encountering some obnoxious birds. They quacked him his cards:
    165.png
    (yes, that's 6. 5 came as two-fer)
    Luu journeyed deeper still into the desert, grateful that it seemed like the sun was going down the further he ventured. He encountered deeper in some... walking sand imp things with giant hats. They die like everything else dies, so he slayed them too. Their little flailing arms could not save them. Not that they didn't try, what with their terrible spawn rate in the Desert of Red Sand (whatever ones supposedly appear in North Desert Road 2 no longer do). Slowly but surely, they gave up some cards:
    166.png

    Something kept eating away at Luu, though- there appear to be a good number of monsters remaining in the orange section of his monster book that specifically appear underwater. However, those cursed penguins block his path. However, there is another way... through Ludibrium. Luu decides to stop wasting time with these dumb sand dwarves and heads over to Ludibrium, where he makes his way to Helios Tower. Surely this will be easier to descend.

    Some motorized rats stood in Luu's way. They did not remaining standing for long (copied instead of pasted on the last one):
    167.png
    During that time, Luu had an epiphany- nothing actually drops most of the food items sold here. Luu could, within the constraints of the challenge, simply rely on these for his healing needs instead. After all, he already does this with his magic potions. However, doing so would effectively circumvent the entire restriction on buying potions.

    Then again, does restricting buying potions really add much to this? Luu is a mage; potion consumption is higher in general strictly through virtue of guzzling mp like no tomorrow. Additionally, this challenge is a preservation of Luu's fashion sense while also providing a path through the world. Potion buying restrictions don't seem to add to this, other than by requiring grinding for potions. Which, given that he can't even do that for MP potions period, makes this moot. As for HP potions, Luu has far less defence; even with magic guard he uses more potions than he earns, on average. So, for the sake of the challenge, Luu can now buy potions from stores because preventing him from doing so was adding nothing to the challenge as a mage. Luu stocked up on white potions (since most things drop them, though not in sufficient amounts that Luu doesn't end up just using up his supply if he were grinding for them) and sells his haul (including the old equipment):
    168.png
    Notably, the dark chaos robe dropped back in Orbis Tower.

    Luu headed downward, preparing for the... well, turns out someone installed an elevator. Perhaps they could install one in Orbis Tower, too?

    Luu rode the elevator down, and made his way to Korean Folk Town. From there, he flung himself down a well, and landed in the Sharp Unknown. Luu had finally made it to Aqua Road. The cards came fast and furious:
    169.png
    Though at that point, Luu's motivation to continue turned to motivation to sleep. Rather than drown in the sea, he slept in the bottom of the well of Korean Folk Town.

    That they will, that they will. Those penguins hurt a lot more than you'd expect.

    Why did pre-BB GMS have so many areas with low-level mobs locked behind higher-level ones, like aqua road? Such an odd design choice.
     
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    Word of advice- don't sleep in a well. Bad for the back, and all your clothes get soggy.

    Luu went back to aqua road, to work out the remaining cards for the seacles. Sure enough:
    170.png
    With that out of the way, he could move on. Mushroom coral hill had some interesting clownfish that Luu took the opportunity to dispatch:
    171.png
    With that, Luu moved on to the blue seaweed road, where he encountered some yellow seahorses. Conveniently, the direct path to the hidden street dungeon where many of these yellow seahorses reside does not require actually running into any, so it's fair game. This made acquiring their cards far easier:
    172.png
    Luu moved on to a valley filled with bubble fish. He took them out quickly:
    173.png
    The map contains flower fish as well; however, the actual spawns can end up completely exhausted by bubble fish, thus falling into the rule of one monster spawn completely taking up another (yes, flower fish are stronger than bubble fish, but I would at least like to retain some of my sanity here, and aqua road is weird due to swimming). So, Luu moved on to the next map, where the flower fish spawns were far more sensible. This paid off:
    174.png
    From there (after clearing out a bit of his inventory of junk) he made his way further west, to a sea filled with shrimp and masked fish. This went quite well:
    175.png

    Luu had to trek back all the way to Korean Folk Town to offload his inventory, though:
    176.png
    The sooner he could nab the last of these cards, the better. Fortunately, that happened in short order (the last Krip card is actually covering up a Mask Fish card, and a Seruf card was obtained too but the picture lost):
    177.png
    Luu could finally make it into the Aquarium. He exited west, and encountered some seals. They could cast ice and lightning magic of their own, even! It does not seem that Luu will be passing west of the Aquarium. So, Luu was at yet another impasse. He returned to Ludibrium and contemplated his options. He could return to Ariant and push against those sand dwarves. He could go to Japan. He could go to Singapore. He could go to China. He could fuddle about in Ludibrium, either descending Eos Tower or mucking about in the factory.

    Generally speaking, Ariant is the most inconvenient of all of those to do, so that one was struck from the list. Singapore requires a departure from Kerning City, so that too is no good. That leaves Japan, China, or doing some stuff in Ludibrium. Well, couldn't hurt to muck about in the factory at least, while he ponders what else he could do. He found himself in a sea of teddy bears. You can't really... kill a stuffed animal, so Luu resolved to un-stuff them. During this, a budding nightlord named dormillon showed up. They offered to party together, and Luu was happy to oblige. They killed the various teddy bears about there for a bit, until they had to leave. Another one showed up almost immediately after named Hippy05, with the same outcome- a party was made, the map was split, many teddy bears were killed, and then they left.

    Ah, the little things.

    Anyway, Luu successfully acquired the cards he needed (during the party the map was partitioned, and Luu took nothing from their half):
    178.png

    Eventually though, Luu got distracted with recent festivities:
    179.png
    He then called it a night.
     
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    Luu woke up from his sleep, having slept on a bed fashioned out of all the stuffing that he had acquired. Firstly, he sold the contents of his inventory:
    180.png
    Then back to work killing those bears. At this point, all that remained were the pink teddy bear cards. Despite the occasional person passing through, Luu is able to muster up the remaining cards:
    181.png

    This left Luu with a choice: left, right, or down? Luu decided with left, where he eventually encountered some... ducks on wheels.

    This place is rather confusing. Fortunately, they drop cards like anything else. Unfortunately, he was only able to grab one before his inventory had filled:
    182.png

    The haul:
    183.png

    Notably he found another Golden Pride, this one with better stats. Luu returned to the ducks, and the ducks returned the favor:

    184.png
    With the ducks dead, Luu moved on. The next room over held some soldiers on horseback. Worthy adversaries! While they didn't deal all that much damage (relatively speaking; ~110 is a lot, but not much more than everything else here), they can take a lot of hits. He managed to obtain a card after a good deal of effort:

    185.png
    But by then he was tired and wished to sleep.
     
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    Having recovered from his nap, Luu got back to hunting. These Toy Trojans were going down, no matter how much of a fight they put up. Luu managed to grab 2 before his inventory had completely filled:
    186.png

    The haul:
    187.png
    However, it's at this point that Luu realized he had a problem- he was out of potions. Going from Ludibrium to NLC is... an incredibly long way, but one Luu must do. Alas, the Toy Trojans must wait.

    After buying the potions and returning to Kerning City, Luu had a thought. While he's here, why not tackle some of the loose ends he left behind? Might as well. He starts with the closest- Jr. Wraiths. It took longer to find a free map than it did to attain the cards:
    188.png
    Luu tried his hand at Wraiths, but that wasn't happening, so he moved on. Next on the list is the unfinished Rocky Mask set:. On the way Luu decided to test his lucky with Stumpy. Luck both in getting timers (got timers on 7 channels), and actually getting the opportunity to kill Stumpy across them (first time yes, second time was in competition with a fellow card-hunter, third time was in competition with someone who was in the area getting ancient sap- Luu was kind and gave them the remaining sap that they needed, and they exchanged fame). Fortunately, he managed to nab both sets in the end:
    189.png

    With 60 sets completed, Luu was requested to acquire an amethyst to power up the monster book ring yet some more. Checking through his monster book, he found the most reasonable thing that drops amethyst ore is... blue snails.

    It's always the snails.

    Turns out killing snails is hypnotic (or at least boring); soon Luu was fast asleep.
     
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    Another day, another chunk of time spent killing snails. The snails yielded before Luu's patience did. Additionally, he sold his haul of items during this:
    190.png
    After that, Luu decided to tackle Curse Eyes and fairies. Since the fairies produce cards at a higher rate than the Curse Eyes, he switched from tree 3 to tree 9 once he acquired all of those cards. The cards came a-plenty, but so did Luu's tiredness: he managed to nab all the fairy cards, but had to bail after only a few Curse Eye cards:
    191.png
     
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    After a brief break, Luu returned to killing these green lizard abominations. Their cards soon fell:
    192.png
    Since he was already in the forest, Luu decided to work his way over to monkey forest 2. Fortunately monkey forest is neatly designed; the portals are on walkways that avoid all the monsters. Additionally, they all appear on specific ledges with shooting perches off to the side.

    Luu wouldn't be needing those shooting perches, though. The cards fell soon enough:
    193.png

    It's at this point that Luu ran out of easy targets in Victoria Island. Given this is the case, he decided to hitch a flight to Singapore, given that it's only accessible through Kerning City anyway. First batch of foes to fight? Demonic stop signs and trash cans.

    Okay then.

    After strewing trash everywhere and refusing to pick it up, Luu gets the cards he needs:
    194.png
    To note, during this ordeal Luu managed to reach level 55. This is an important milestone; for the past 10 levels he's been saving a portion of his SP, to dump 15 into Thunder Bolt all at once. He finally had enough. The resulting improvement in power was incredibly dramatic.

    From there, he moved on to... flying demonic things and no-speeding signs. This place is weird. They, too, dropped cards eventually:
    195.png
    A little further in, and they obtained fire extinguishers! And employed them vigorously, shooting them directly at Luu's face.

    Luu repaid the message in kind:
    196.png
    From there Luu tried the upper-left portal and found himself run over by a truck. Not happening. He rubbed the tire marks out of his face and tried the upper right portal instead. He found himself in a lovely town, itself connected to yet another town (this time in Malaysia). Too bad every exit led to certain death.

    Did get an Emo Slime card out of it, though:
    197.png

    With that, Luu's adventure to Singapore ended. He fell asleep on the flight back to Kerning City; it was a long adventure, after all.
     
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