The Tower of God 3rd Floor, previously teased in the developer notes, was implemented with the July 29th Patch. Along with the new hunting grounds, updates included additional PK penalties and changes to Nine Core crafting limits. Several quality-of-life improvements were also applied; here is a summary of the key issues and news from this week.

The balance for Nine Core crafting has been adjusted once again. The development team stated that the system was revamped to provide more benefits to players who have consistently leveled their characters. Consequently, the crafting limit for players level 45 and above was drastically reduced from 10 times per week to 3, and the previously unlimited crafting for those level 50 and above is now capped at 20 times per week. A new tier for level 52 and above has been added, making the requirements stricter for those who wish to produce Nine Cores without limits as before.

Along with stricter crafting limits, the recipe for the core material, Essence of Life, has also changed. The EXP cost required to craft Essence of Life has doubled from 1 million to 2 million, increasing the burden on players. While there were concerns that the increased level requirements and material costs might lead to a price hike due to a decrease in Nine Core supply, there have been no significant market fluctuations yet.

Chaos alignment penalties have been strengthened to curb indiscriminate PK. The existing 10-stage destruction alignment has been expanded to 19 stages, with added penalties for physical defense at each level. Reaching the maximum 19th stage applies a debuff that reduces max HP by 60%. Furthermore, Chaos-aligned characters are now completely restricted from using general goods and Skillbook shops, as well as Storage, creating significant hurdles for normal gameplay.

Players expect that this additional regulatory measure, following the removal of the Attack buff, will mitigate random PK. The developers had previously warned of further action after complaints about random PK persisted despite the removal of the Attack buff for Chaos characters. Beyond these functional restrictions, the team is preparing to introduce a personal alert system in August that prioritizes attacking players with destruction alignment during auto-combat, as well as increasing NPC shop prices based on alignment stage, which is expected to further marginalize players who engage in random PK.

While the world content and the new Healer class, originally scheduled for late July, have been postponed to late August, the top-tier hunting grounds, Tower of God 3rd Floor, were released early. The developers prioritized refining class balance and combat environments while introducing the 3rd floor early to expand hunting options for Inheritors.

The 3rd floor offers higher EXP and drops superior items compared to the 1st and 2nd floors. Eliminating the new boss, Fake of Pride, grants a chance to obtain the Legend grade accessory, Fake's Ring. However, the high difficulty of the 3rd-floor monsters has caught many players off guard during their initial attempts.

Quality-of-life improvements have been applied. A feature has been added to view the full map by touching the dungeon mini-map. Hunting settings, previously fixed at the account level, have been changed to individual character settings. A 'Nearby' tab was added to the party invitation pop-up, and a feature to sort online guild members to the top was introduced. Inventory sorting has been improved so that identical stackable items automatically combine up to the maximum quantity per slot.

The daily dungeon usage structure has also been reorganized. The 'instant completion' and 'entry count reset' features in the Temple of Experience and Temple of Abundance—which caused confusion due to their similarity to event dungeons—have been removed. Consequently, daily entry for both dungeons is now limited to once per day.

The event dungeon, God's Testing Ground, originally scheduled to end on July 29th, has been extended by one week until August 5th. The dungeon is highly valued by players seeking growth due to its high EXP yield within a 5-minute time limit.

Although the patch added materials and collection items for God Armor to the dungeon, the drop rate is low compared to the 5-minute limit, and drop rates in regular dungeons are also low, suggesting that completing the God Armor collection will take considerable time.

An event allowing players to craft Rare and Unique Rune Chests will run until August 12nd. Rare Rune Chests can be crafted up to 4 times per account (750k Nine each), and Unique Rune Chests up to 2 times per account (20M Nine each), with a 100% success rate. This is an opportunity to secure hard-to-get Unique grade runes and aim for key set effects like Hit.

Note that crafted Rune Chests cannot be stored in Storage. If crafted on a sub character, they cannot be moved to the main character, so you must log in with your main character to craft them. If your main character lacks Nine, transfer it from your sub character before crafting.

The public purchase feature, a key authority of the elected God, saw varying usage across servers. In some unique cases, such as Lindel 3, the God fixed the Nine Core purchase price at 100 Diamonds to stabilize the market and solidify their re-election. However, on most other servers, the feature remained stagnant due to a lack of item registrations by the God.

In response, an event-based public purchase system managed directly by the game will begin on July 29th. It operates independently of the existing method where the elected user registers items and can be accessed via the 'Event' tab in the public purchase menu. The purchase list will refresh daily at 20:00 until August 5th, with each list remaining active until 19:55 the following day.

As the condition for unlimited Nine Core crafting has been raised to level 52, more players are setting level 52 as their goal. Many are searching for efficient hunting grounds to level up quickly. Cursed Mountains, a major hunting ground, is already saturated, and Beast Pass has a high barrier to entry due to its difficulty.

As a result, players are flocking to the Artaron Temple as an alternative. While some use other hunting grounds for specific items or goals, the Temple offers the best efficiency for pure EXP gain to reach level 52. This concentration of players in the Temple is expected to continue for the time being.

With the addition of Rare grade research in the July 22nd patch, the research system is once again in the spotlight as a means to 'spec up.' Inheritors who have already secured Epic skills, runes, and trait settings are now investing Nine into Unique grade research. Calculating the expected value, the cost to complete one stage of Unique grade research for a single weapon is approximately 4.53 million Nine, with about 27.18 million Nine required to complete the first stage of all Unique grade research.

However, since the cost is significant even for just the first stage of Unique grade, it is recommended to prioritize Epic skills and traits that offer better noticeable stat increases. Since the cost triples from stage 1 to stage 2, it is not advisable to approach it prematurely.

In the second God election, held in the 6th week since the launch of Sol: Enchantment, Gods were replaced on a total of 14 servers, including regular ones. Only three streamers—Ni on Caltheon 2, o4 on Caltheon 4, and Jiho-hyung on Caltheon 5—succeeded in being re-elected. Dramatic upsets occurred, such as Gaenari on Lindel 4 overcoming a 1.8 billion Nine gap to win, and 'Emergency Situation' seizing the throne on Lindel 5. Notably, Kaswangno1 on Lindel 3 spent 3.6 billion Nine, the highest expenditure across all servers.

With the power dynamics on each server reshuffled, the next God election will be held on August 8th. As details regarding the Main God and Absolute God remain undisclosed, the competition for Nine expenditure between factions on each server is expected to remain fierce for the time being.