Academic city

'''This page is a work in progress. Please help by adding anything missing to this page.'''

There are a lot of things to do in Academic City.

To progress to the next area Coastal City you must get title 1 (apprentice warrior for warrior class), go to the guild and then accept Destroy the Golem quest. (the same applies to every next title up until Ancient Ruins

Tournament
There are currently at least 10 tournament battles. Each battle gets a lot more difficult than the last. Only the main character can be in the party to take part, much like the training room in Village. Completing each tournament gets you movement, among other things. Completing some tournaments unlock new facilities to venture to.

Classwork
This area includes 9 training battles to improve stats and unlock skills, among other things.

These 9 training battles are split into 3 categories: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. There is a large difficulty jump between these categories.

Movement
Many sub-areas in Academic City are unlocked by spending a resource called movement.

Go Deeper Into The Slums/Steer Clear of the Slums
"Go deeper into the Slums" is a relatively undemanding path that requires gold and gives Destiny regen, which is valuable for a first playthrough. It unlocks no special items, but the Mandragora which is only needed for ED5.

"Steer clear of the Slums" is an incredibly grind-heavy path that nonetheless provides a significant amount of max Destiny(389 more than deeper). It significantly raises the Goddess Statue maximum and eventually unlocks Shrines, which increase the cap of items in the "Amulet" category.

The problem is that it requires a ludicrous amount of Goddess Statues to finish the Bishop questline (666). With three Sloth slots, it may be possible to automate the process (with Loop & Skip if stuck checked) by putting Flower Fairy in the party and using the title Forest People for Wood and Flower regen, then setting the Sloth tasks to Knitting a Wreath, Carve a Wooden Statue, and Create a Goddess Statue. However, the initially low Goddess Statue cap means that, early on, the process will still require careful monitoring to avoid wasting time due to the statues hitting the cap.

It is highly recommended to get Loop Action+ from the Akashic Record before attempting the questline, as this improves Loop Action efficiency by 50%. If manually chopping wood, Beetle (from Lostlorn Forest) is useful for its Lumberjack boost. For attempts after unlocking Valley (may require an ED3 playthrough), Tree Golem is of course very helpful for its passive Wood regen and boost to Create a Goddess Statue.

The extreme tedium of the Bishop questline is such that it should be avoided unless you are specifically going for an ending that needs a high Destiny cap relative to what you can easily attain. Chokepoints:


 * ED1: no special considerations - all Destiny options can be attained regardless of questline.
 * ED2: MUST have 5.5K Destiny in order to Search the Bandit in Bandit Hideout.
 * ED3: MUST have 7K Destiny in order to progress the Iari storyline (attainable without Bishop route if ED1 and ED2 have been run several times)
 * ED4: MUST "Leave the Village Alone" MUST become "Elemental Master" as last title before Graduation. (Req. Finishing Spirit Spring with 30Fire/Water/Wind/Earth)
 * ED5: MUST "Go deeper into the Slums" as you need the Mandragora for this ending.

That said, you really don't have to make a decision until you're about to Graduate, so hold off on the decision between Go Deeper and Steer Clear until then if you're uncertain. Better to be able to take the path then than to be stuck needing another playthrough.

But please, spare yourself pain and do not take "Steer clear of the Slums" on a first playthrough! You don't need the Destiny max at that point, and trying to finish the questline without Sloth automation and Loop Action+ is worse than anything the Demon King can do to you!

Later in the game, when you aim for ED4 and therefore left the Village without the girl Norn, you don't have to make that decision. As your godess statue max will be only 1 without her when you arrive in Academic city and it won't be possible to raise it the first time you do ED4, you'll be forced to choose "Deeper into the slums".

For a better overview, this is the net gain and costs of both paths Note that each Goddess Statue gives you Destiny max: +5 and destiny regen: +0.020/s and that each shrine gives you (among other things) Goddess statue max: +1 which means that the Bishop will grant you Destiny max: +180 and destiny regen: +0.720/s by the extra Goddess Statues alone. Adding the extra Wooden Statues and the extra Stone Statues the shrines allow you to build (54 each) this adds up to Destiny max: +504, among the other bonus

Graduation
Graduating is essential to progress in the game, yet it locks an enormous number of tasks.

An incomplete list of locked tasks is below:


 * Everything under "Tournament"
 * Everything under "Classwork"
 * Many "Orphanage" tasks
 * The "save Norn" subplot
 * The "Bandit Hideout" subplot - this subplot is critical to ED2 and ED3, so pay attention to this if you are attempting one of those endings!
 * The "Go deeper into the Slums"/"Steer clear of the Slums" fork - note that the actual paths are not locked once started, but the option to start those paths is locked by Graduate.

Upgrade Action
Note: To get the Recipes, you really only need to have the ingredients in your inventory and pay the money. The ingredients are not used up.

Facility breakdown
In Academic City, there are lots of facilities where you can get very different bonus stats. The problem is that you need Movement to reach them and you won't have much of that early on. So here is a little table with net gains and losses of every facility (including the costs of the "Go to..." option) to help you decide where to go first. * You'll need the recipe for this which can only be unlocked in the cooking workshop.

** You don't use up the ingredients, but you have to have them in your inventory. That last of them is egg, which is needed for 3 of the recipes and can only be found at Ancient Ruis - Dragon's nest.

*** After Fallen Sister you can chosse among multiple paths with different outcomes so they are not included here.