REFINEMENT

1. Refinement increases the power of weapons and clothing.
2. Only the Master Refiners in Hefei can perform refinement.
3. A certain type of Blood of Dragons is needed for all refinement attempts.
4. Refinement isn't guaranteed to succeed, and failure may lower an items refinement bonus, or destroy it outright.
5. There are many types of items to increase refinement success rates, and protect items in case of failure.

Refinement is the primary means in which the weapons and clothing of Nine Dragons have their strength increased. Refined equipment can be identified by the “plus-number” (+1, +2, +3, etc) which appears after its name. Refined weapons deal additional damage, and refined clothing grants various bonuses, which are detailed in the Clothing section.

Refinement can only be performed by the Master Refiners in Hefei. Mo Tailan will refine your weapons, and Hwasong refines clothing. You will sometimes find equipment with refinement bonuses already applied, but the only way to increase the bonus is via refiners.



Clothing can be refined to a maximum level of +15, while weapons can be refined as high as +18. However, while refinement is relatively cheap and easy at low levels, each increased level requires rarer and more expensive components, and carries an increased chance of failure.

Refining requires, in addition to the item you’re refining, a certain amount of gold (higher refinement attempts are more expensive), and various types of Blood of Dragons. (this isn’t the same as the Dragon Blood used to prevent loss of cloth items on failed refinement - see below). There are many varieties of Blood of Dragons, and each refinement level requires a specific type. To find out which type you need, place the item into the refinement window, and the necessary type of Blood of Dragons will be displayed. Alternatively, you can check this table:



Both weapons and clothing use the same types of Blood of Dragons, though clothing does not refine to higher than +15.

Blood of Dragons can be found on random creatures throughout the Land. The required Blood of Dragons for +1 and +2 can be purchased from Shu Shangruo, at the Hefei General store. From +3 to +15, one can exchange increasing amounts of Blood Essence with Luo Renqiu to receive the Blood of Dragons needed for higher refinement levels. Mo Tailan herself has the required materials for the most powerful weapon refinements, and will provide it in exchange for Red Stone (Excellence), which only comes from dismantling powerful items (which have themselves been refined already).

Once you’ve gathered the materials, you can attempt refinement. However, chances for success become quite low at higher levels. And a botched refinement may lower the refinement level of the item, or even destroy it outright for higher refinement levels (You’ll receive some Blood Essence from a broken item, at least). Therefore, the wise hero will take precautions to increase the chances of success, and minimize losses on failure.

These items assist in the refinement process. Some are found in various places in the Land, others are only available via the Papaya Marketplace.

Dragon’s Scales – Using a Dragon’s Scale upon a weapon will increase its Hardness by 1, to a maximum potential hardness of 3. When a weapon has hardness of 1 or higher, and refinement fails and the weapon would normally be destroyed, its hardness will instead decrease by 1. However, hardness normally can’t be increased again, once lost. An item’s potential hardness is displayed as white bars, and its actual hardness is displayed as green bars.

Dragon’s Tears – Using Dragon’s Tears on a weapon won’t increase its hardness, but it will increase the Potential Hardness of the weapon by 2. Dragon’s Tears can be used twice on any given weapon. The use of two Dragon’s Tears and seven Dragon’s Scales will permit a weapon to remain intact after 7 failed refinement attempts, which is the current maximum.

Mirror of Ancient Dragon – If you’ve already used up a weapon’s total maximum of 7 failed refinements, via Dragon Scales and Dragon’s Tears, and the weapon is +15 or higher, you can use this Mirror to fully reset the weapon back to its original hardness and potential hardness. This will allow you to once again use Dragon Scales and Dragon’s Tears on the weapon, to potentially receive another 7 chances to refine it. The Mirror can only be used once on a particular weapon.

Red Dragon Orb – If one uses this item after losing a weapon (not a cloth item) to a failed refinement, or due to its durability decreasing to 0, the weapon can be restored. However, the weapon will be restored to its original state, losing all previous refinements and any other modifications, such as sockets, ornaments, options, or hardness modifications. You will effectively be receiving a new, fresh copy of the lost weapon.

Green Dragon Orb – This item functions like the Red Dragon Orb, but the weapon is instead restored to the state it was in, just before it was destroyed. An item already recovered once with a Green Dragon Orb can’t be recovered again in this manner.

Dragon Blood – As stated above, this isn’t the same Blood of Dragons needed for all refinement attempts. Using Dragon Blood prevents a cloth item from losing refinement or being destroyed, should refinement fail. Unlike weapons, there’s no limit on how many times a cloth item can be protected in this manner. However, also unlike weapons, the Dragon Blood is consumed whether or not the refinement attempt succeeds or fails.

Tender Stone – Using one of these stones will briefly increase your refinement success rate by a varying amount, depending upon the stone. The duration of the effect is 30 seconds - generally only long enough for a single refinement attempt.

Tender Stone of Nine Divines – These rare and precious stones work like the lesser Tender Stones, but success on your next refinement is guaranteed. Be advised that the duration for this item is very short (only 15 seconds), and you may lose the effect if you take too long setting up the refinement attempt. Make sure you know exactly where in your inventory all items involved in the refinement are located before using one of these items.

Extreme Refinement Scroll – These scrolls come in +1 and +2 varieties. Applying this scroll to an item adds a “virtual” refinement bonus of the indicated amount. The bonuses from refinement are increased accordingly, even beyond +18, but further refinement attempts do not take this virtual bonus into account. An item cannot be traded with other players while it is affected by an Extreme Refinement bonus, so you will have to find and use a Removing Extreme Refinement Scroll, which removes the virtual refinement bonus (which cannot be recovered), if you wish to trade it.

IMPORTANT: There are multiple items, costumes, epithets, and other effects which increase the rate of successful refinement. These items increase the success chance by the indicated percentage - having 100% increased refinement success rate does not mean that every refinement attempt you make will succeed!

For example, if a certain refinement has a success chance of X%, then having 100% increased refinement success rate from items and effects will increase your success chance by 100% of X%, resulting in a refinement success chance of 2X%. For another example, 5% refinement success will become 15% if your refinement success rate increase total is 200% (5% increased by 200% is 15%).

EVEN MORE IMPORTANT: Refinement success rate increasing items and effects are not counted in attempts to refine weapons to levels higher than +15. There are only two specific items which function for such refinement attempts.

Pot of Blue Dragon’s Soul – Increases refinement success rate by 50% when refining weapons to +16 or higher.

Pot of Red Phoenix’s Soul – Prevents refinement level drop on failure when refining weapons to +16 or higher.