Making Money Before 120

So your level 120 upgrade quest is coming up, and you're checking out the items you'll need on the market: a Rainbow Soul Stone, a Shiny Soul Stone and... oh boy, a Colorful Soul Stone. This is what you were warned about by guildmates - maybe you've even seen several of them reach the dreaded level 120 and find themselves unable to do the quest because they can't afford the necessary items. Well, this won't be you.

First, the level 120 upgrade is the biggest and most expensive one you'll have to do. Do you remember the Sea of Clouds level 100 upgrade quest? Well, it's nothing like that. It doesn't give you a book to unlock new skills, and it's definitely going to cost you more than 5 multi-hued jewels. Nowadays, the cost of the level 120 upgrade ranges between 3 and 4 billion gold. However, it raises the max level of your skills by 10 (70 instead of 60) along with the max level limit for active skills (from 90 to 100 for most skills). It also allows you to upgrade your mercenaries and raise their skills as well. And of course, as with any upgrade, your stats and skills get a little better.

After your 120 upgrade, you have access to several better TBS missions (The Shaman Returns, Hidden Power, Spy Hunt) and money will come much easier. Obviously, you can still do these missions at 120 regardless of your upgrade status, but they are a lot easier to solo with your upgrade (level 70 Electron Field kicks a**). But before 120, your money-making options are limited... or are they? In fact, there are several things you can do pre-120 to earn some decent gold for equipment, mercenary upgrades and saving for your upgrade quest.

1. Goncourt. You can find this wandering NPC by speaking to Livingstone near Bucharest. For a reasonable fee of 1000 gold, he will let you in on the location of Goncourt, one of the most popular lowbie money-making strategies. Stock up on really cheap skill books (Mana Drain I is at a fixed price of 5000 gold) or Commodity Boxes I. The boxes are cheaper but more tedious since you have to open them all first. They also count towards your daily box opening allowance.

Next, find Goncourt and trade up to 400 books per day. This will cost you 1000 gold per transaction, and you will receive a book box. The Ancient Book Boxes are what you're after. Open up the Medieval and Modern, re-trade all the trash to Goncourt and sell the good stuff (Toxic Sword I and II, War Cry, Flame Blow, Flame Spear, etc.) You can either open or sell the Ancient boxes; selling will yield pure profit, opening is a gamble. You can get total crap, or you can score a book worth 30 million gold. Repeat every day for some decent money.

2. Treasure Hunting. Buy a stack of Ornate Treasure Maps from the market. When you click these maps, a treasure chest will spawn somewhere in the world. You have to find it within 5 minutes, kill it and loot your reward. I recommend that you go around and visit as many towns as possible before you start doing treasure maps. The closer you can teleport to your treasure chest, the less likely you are to lose it, because if you don't find it within the alloted time it will vanish into oblivion.

Many things inside the Ornate Treasure Chest are kind of crappy, but you can get lucky and find a 7-day mercenary room license worth approximately 1 billion gold. From experience, Insignia Licenses sell really well at a decent price. You may need to loot between 20 and 40 or more chests to get a merc room license. They are kind of rare, but if you (sort of) enjoy treasure hunting it's a good way to make a large chunk of money.

3. Crafting. I'm not talking about equipment crafting here. In the current state of the game, it's a total waste of gold. However, some crafted items are in high demand: fabrics, thread, various papers, tools, vials and crystals. Making the low-tier items in the Stationery, Crystal, Tool, Medicine and Sewing categories can earn you some decent gold. Many people won't waste time making 20,000 Colorful Thread for a crafting project. They will just buy it off the market, and that's where you come in: you become the supplier. These items are dirt cheap to make, but very annoying and time-consuming. Profit is almost always guaranteed. Generally, good items to craft include Mysterious Vials, Antidotes (sometimes), Parchment and other papers, Colorful Thread, Colorful Fabric, Animal Replicas, Multi-Hued Crystal Shards, etc. Always check how much a batch costs, and how much you can expect to make from it. Market prices on mats and low-tier items vary greatly.

4. TBS. While you don't have access to the better TBS yet, you can still farm Fleeing Betrayer (105), Alishan in Ruins (110) and Reclaiming Alishan (115) for some easy and quick coins. These are the most profitable pre-120 missions. Reclaiming Alishan even gives you gold coins worth 3.5 million gold each. Other missions are good too but these 3 were my personal favorites.

5. Recruitment quests. Buy some Secrets of Time and reset mercenary recruitment quests to make some extra gold. Good ones to repeat are Witch, Exorcist, Oracle and Lady Knight for their orbs, Canoneer for the Vials of Potential and Hwarang for the quest reward money. Witch sells very well and can be done fairly quickly, making her a favorite among those who repeat quests for money.

6. Dismantling cheap gear. This requires a bit of market-savviness (as do many money-making tactics I suppose). Check out this page for an overview of different gear levels and their average element yield when dismantled. Then, look at the current price of various elements and find pieces of gear that you can buy for less than the average value of elements. I used to make good money buying Phoenix items under 3 million gold and selling the resulting Flame Elements for about 5 millions. If you're patient, buy the boxes instead (cheaper than average element value of course), open them, sell the higher value items (chest armors, melee gauntlets and such items tend to be worth more than others) and dismantle the rest for crafting experience and elements.

7. Events. Many events have tradeable rewards, whether it's mercenary skill books, Atlas Outfit Stones, various reward tokens, jewels and other items. Participate in the events and sell the rewards you are not using. Events in general also give some nice no-trade rewards that can save you money on stuff (consumables such as Ambrosia and Water of Life, various licenses, Lucky Chain Letters, mercenary summons, scrolls, accessories and mounts). Make sure to check out the events!

8. Occupied Coast.  This 113 individual dungeon can be a decent money-maker before 120. Mobs inside drop some Deep Sea Pearls and Emerald Fragments. The latter usually sells for several million gold. The end reward includes some Goddess books and additional Emerald Fragments, jewels and Abyssal Marble (worth a few billions). The final boss can drop a key to the second floor, worth 50-70 million gold. You can buy the Occupied Shoreline Map (key) on the market or through Pointry for some battle points.

9. Empress Dungeon. The Haunted Tatami Room is a good money-making opportunity if you are above level 100. Gather a squad of people together, buy an Old Kendama (key) and enter the dungeon. Inside, someone will be protecting the NPC and the rest need to kill some monsters. Make sure you grab Daka's quests at the entrance for some Evil-Slaying Arrows and various Buddha statues that can contain items for the Empress quest. If you're lucky, you can make several hundred millions in a single Tatami run.