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Mystic Tower - Mystic Knight 09
Last time we failed to save half the planet, but we got our favorite corpse back.
Exdeath destroyed Mihnwu's home town, so he begins flying erratically.
First order of business, wander around this forest in the south land bridge.
Lenna gets poisoned for old time sake.
Or rather, we enter a hidden town. These guys have been in a time freeze for a thousand years.
A thief knife is here, so now Mihnwu could steal.
We must circumnavigate the globe on Boko.
Another black chocobo. I pulled it out of town, but am not sure if I'll make use of him.
So we're off to win a bar bet.
And while we're on Boko, we take a little detour
We're being sent up the river.
Top center or the waterfall, we get this. It has its uses.
Now to claim our prize.
The Mirage Vest gives you one Blink image at the start of battle. A bug lets you reset this with splendid results.
This guy is blocking a hidden door. Mirage is full of them.
This guy sells the highest tier White and Black Magics, except for one of each.
Mihnwu has two more spells to learn, he will do so today.
There are two of every shop, one sells good things, the other sells great things. This is the good shop. Mihnwu gets a crystal helm.
And a black garb in case I need the speed or strength boost from the horribly out of date Gi or Ninja suit.
Better defense than either of them, and stamina boost in one package.
The weapon shops are useless, both the good and great ones.
So let's unseal some Legendary Sealed Weapons
I'm a poet, and I know it.
Good strong dagger, plus random instant death.
A rod that boosts almost all elemental damage. Absolutely useless to Mihnwu, but he needs to get three things.
Hell yeah, Mihnwu has been carting around royalty for weeks, now he can finally be the once and future king.
Just gonna equip it, and...
FUCK, it's a great sword, so useless. Doesn't sell for much either.
This guy is a tough customer. If I talked to someone in Regiole when we first got there after Gilgamesh, someone would tell us not to fuck around in the castle. This was why.
Mihnwu is perfectly capable of dealing with his stuff now (innate reflect, powerful attack that procs confusion, and zombie breath), but I need to run to level up the chicken knife.
Speaking of Gilgamesh, let's go back to the Big Bridge.
Every lithograph or tablet dungeon has this pair.
The Assassins dagger trivializes this further.
I'm level 45 and this jerk casts Level X spells. Shockingly they cast everything but the big one. I still put every one of them to sleep though.
The dungeon is a pipe maze, altering these switches routes you to different places. All of them but the entrance hole has treasure.
Monster!
This isn't the one I want. So I run. Now that I'm thinking about it, I probably should have left the trapped chest in the beginners hall alone to grind out the chicken knife.
This is the same guy from the pyramid, as we already know he's not properly grounded or fused.
This is a somewhat troublesome fight, the shadow dancers hit hard.
As shown in this other fight. I run from this because I don't want to bother with The Damned being revived by the Assassins Dagger.
There are treasures on either side of this room, this is one of the few times in the game where I won't go out of my way to open them.
Again with the plural, why the plural?
I think this is the last boss with an actual dangerous gimmick. Only one is real, and there's no spinning or noticeable tell to identify him.
Despite only one taking damage, the others are ready and willing to attack. Mind Blast does paralyze and sap.
No elemental weakness or exploitable status, so it's back to drain.
The false Stoker's can be killed by the Assassins Dagger, but they come right back. I think this resets their scripting, and that is a very very bad thing if its true. Since then it means 4 jerks are at different steps in their AI and could better stun lock you.
Mihnwu is still suffering from the Mind Blast's sap, and these guys know Hurricane.
It ends badly.
So trying again (and again, and so on for a total of 7 times), with the Chicken Knife. It's high attack power is not without its drawbacks, however.
There's a sliiiight chance that it will ignore your command and attempt to flee. How slight, you ask?
This happened consecutively, and I didn't even bother to screen shot the other 2 or 3 that were in that same series! 
So I switch.
The asshole will switch when you hit him, and I'm pretty sure he switches for the fuck of it too, because I had to go through a whole other loop before hitting him!
And of course it ends up being the one I knew it was after the parade of failed !Flee procs.
Once the real one dies, the false ones fade one by one, but they are still a threat. On occasion they let one last attack out before going. So keep your health up for a stray Mind Blast, or keep your ATB charged in case of an unlucky Hurricane.
Final Level - 45
Total Deaths - 6
The second paper weight. Despite what Ghido stated, the goal isn't to unseal the Legendary Weapons. Mihnwu could have flown the airship right into the final dungeon after Lenna came back without even unsealing the first three.
Even if playing a straight run, you could safely ignore half of the weapons and just dungeon crawl for the hell of it.
But now the real prize for dealing with Brahm.
Don't need a Crystal Rod or masks or deal with Leviathan (yet) to unlock the ultimate magic.
This is why I ignored those two chests, Tot Aevis has a ton of health, a secret blend of herbs and spices (probably including Ghost Peppers because fuck does he hurt.) and immune to all the good stuff, so time to run.
The second hiccup of a solo run is this tower. It requires a split party to fight two bosses. So the princesses get revived and climb the other tower. Mihnwu does the physical side alone first.
Minotaur does purely physical attacks, so the Mirage Vest, Elf Cloak, and a Flame Shield (for higher evade) take the place of the Bone Mail, Flame Ring, and Aegis Shield.
Despite the evasion, Minotaur does break through the Blink. If you fiddle with your weapons, however.
You get punched in the face. Just a delay in execution. Once Mihnwu acts again...
Blink is back and as good as new.
About 20 rounds later, and he tries to get cute.
But he didn't have the MP to do it. Let's see what happens if we went the other way in the tower.
Minotaur doesn't have too high of a defense, and the innate evasion is welcome.
That's all that needs to be said about that.
Omniscient will counter everything that isn't a magic spell with Return, which resets the battle to its starting condition.
Like this.
Now if I equipped a wall ring I could let him blow his 30000 MP until he didn't have the ONE MP needed to cast Return.
But he's susceptible to silence, so Mihnwu can hack into him with impunity. Even Omniscient's death counter of Flare is snuffed out with this.
You get Holy from Minotaur, and Flare from Omniscient.
Final Level - 45*
Total Deaths - 0**
*Levels 1-3 for the Girls against Minotaur
** 0 boss deaths, 3 for the girls running to the bosses.
Next time; probably grinding and mopping up the other dungeons, since I doubt my chances of beating the final boss with less than 3000 HP.