Nine Chronicles marks its sixth anniversary with v200500, adding Alfheim Hard and craftable Grade 9 gear

In Brief:

• Nine Chronicles (official site) put out version v200500 on Oct. 20 as its sixth anniversary update. It adds Alfheim – Hard stages 501 through 520 and the game’s first craftable Ultimate (Grade 9) equipment.
• Until Nov. 30, players also get a 20-stage 6th Anniversary Festival Dungeon, new collections, a title and raised summon guarantees.
• Grade 9 gear requires level 501. More Hard World stages and more Ultimate items are planned for December.

Nine Chronicles went live with version v200500 on Oct. 20 for its sixth anniversary. The patch opens a second hard-mode world and adds the first Ultimate (Grade 9) equipment that players can craft.

The game’s official account on X announced it with: “v200500 IS HERE! The 6th Anniversary Update has arrived!”

Alfheim – Hard

Alfheim – Hard, the new world, spans stages 501 through 520 and opens once a player clears Stage 500. A run costs 30 AP plus 10 Catalyst Potions.

Clearing a stage for the first time pays 1,000 Catalyst Potions. The release notes put drops at three times those of Hard World 1, so rewards stay roughly in step with the steeper AP cost.

Stage 520 isn’t the end. The release notes list stages 521 through 550 for December.

Ultimate equipment arrives

v200500 brings 10 craftable Ultimate (Grade 9) items, divided between the Fire and Water elements. Both sets need character level 501.

Inside Alfheim – Hard, a new recipe opens every two stages. Fire recipes arrive on stages 501, 503, 505, 507 and 509, starting with the weapon and followed by the ring, belt, armor and necklace. Water flips that order over stages 511, 513, 515, 517 and 519, opening with the necklace and finishing with the weapon.

Five new crafting materials drop from specific stages. December is set to bring 15 more Ultimate items for the Land, Wind and Normal elements.

Grade 9 first appeared in the previous patch, v200490. That version put four Ultimate Runes (two Skill Runes and two Stat Runes), four Ultimate Auras, nine Ultimate Grimoires and two Ultimate costumes into the summon pool, along with 20 new collections linked to those items.

Festival dungeon and collections

The 6th Anniversary Festival Dungeon is open from Oct. 20 to Nov. 30. Its 20 stages carry cumulative rewards.

Festival Ember, a new material, starts dropping at Stage 4. Existing Bifrost materials drop as well, and so does Dust, in amounts that grow with difficulty. According to the release notes, Stage 20 centers on Ruby Dust and Emerald Dust and offers about 4,000 Ruby Dust.

Through Nov. 30, fifteen event-material collections grant temporary stat bonuses with a ceiling of “ATK +44% · SPD +32% · HP +28% · DEF +28% · HIT +24%”. Once that date passes, the bonuses shrink to one-quarter strength and become permanent. The update also adds a new anniversary title.

Equipment, rune and costume summons all have higher guarantees over the same period. They go back to their original amounts on Dec. 1.

Anniversary rewards

This update is phase two of the sixth anniversary event. Phase one is already live, with a 2x boost, a Stage 500 mission, Monthly Spend Missions running until Nov. 30, Growth Boosts for new and returning players and an Adventurer’s Rune for every player.

Over two months, the anniversary program offers more than 4 million NCG. Arena gets the biggest cut at 3.2 million NCG.

Background

The game’s documentation lists Planetarium Labs as the publisher of Nine Chronicles and Nine Corporation as its developer. It launched in 2020.

Two earlier patches this year laid the groundwork for the endgame push. On June 25, v200450 added 30 stages and Grade 8 Transcendence equipment. On Aug. 25, v200470 reworked the Adventure Boss and lowered monster difficulty across the game by 20%.

Anyone going after the Fire weapon recipe on Stage 501 will spend 10 Catalyst Potions per attempt.