Perfect World: Malystryx turns 99!

Yes, it’s a milestone in the online game Perfect World when your character reaches Level 99, primarily because this level is the beginning of another esteem, Enlightened or Infernal, or the highest cultivation levels, at least for the moment, in the game.

To understand esteem or cultivation better, let me elaborate further. Esteem is simply another way of saying that your character cannot get new skills until he or she has reached a certain level of understanding. In other words, it’s a general mastery of a group of skills. At present, there are 10 esteem or cultivation levels that your avatar can access every time he or she hits Level x9 (no, not “multiplied by” 9, but [any number from 0 to 9]9).

The levels of esteem or cultivation are: Cunning (Level 9), Attuned (19), Lucid (29), Enigmatic (39), Forbidding (49), Sinister (59), Nirvana (69), Mahayana (79), Sublime or Diabolic (89), and Enlightened or Infernal (99).

When your character hits Level 89, he or she is required to choose between Heaven or Hell, or the cultivation Sublime or Diabolic. Choosing a side will determine your avatar’s fairy (the Tinkerbelle-ish Sublime fairy or the impish Diabolic [some call it a hamburger because it looks like, well, a hamburger] fairy), the skills he or she can master beyond their maximum levels (most skills have a max level of 10), and the quests you can go on.

I chose the Diabolic esteem for Malystryx when she turned 89 because my wife Joyce’s character, Cesky, walked the same path. This enabled us to continue our journey in the Perfect World of Pangu together. That was way back in March 2008.

Malystryx, named after a popular figure in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dragonlance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, turned 99 a few days ago, almost a year since she breached Level 89. Sigh. Talk about slow leveling.

The Infernal Esteem in a nutshell (this assumes you have already finished the first few esteem quests during your Level 89-98 days) after the jump:

1. Talk to the Ghost Warden of Wolf Village inside Devildom (yes, it’s behind that red door in the middle of Universal City). The Ghost Warden will then set you down the path of Infernal.

2. Travel to Broken Phoenix Village either by running, by mount, by flight or by teleportation and look for the Envoy of Greedy Wolf, who will tell you to retrieve an item called the Samsara Shuttle from the miniboss monster Demon Mauler.

3. Of course, you can’t retrieve an item unless you kill the brute holding it. So travel to the Ancient Wasteland at coordinates 387, 481 inside Devildom, locate the Demon Mauler and eliminate it. Being a miniboss, he’s stronger than your average enhanced damage or berserk mob. Take a priest with you, or better yet, an entire party.

4. Return to the Envoy of Greedy Wolf to submit the Samsara Shuttle. The envoy will then use the power of the item to send you back in time to talk to Shen Tulie, the Elite Metal Sentry. If you’ve been around Perfect World, you’ll remember the Elite Metal Sentry as the NPC on Unknown Island.

5. After talking to the Elite Metal Sentry, you’ll be teleported back to Universal Village. When you report to the Ghost Warden in Wolf Village, he’ll tell you to kill the Elite Metal Sentry, who is apparently working up a rage in the Shura Forest at coordinates 444, 613.

6. Go back to the Ghost Warden. Your next task will be to eliminate four boss monsters—the Unearthly Demon, Banished Ox, Forsaken Demon, and Peach Tree Goddess—in the instance dungeon Hell’s Arcadia.

7. Once the nightmare is over, return to the Ghost Warden and receive your reward—some yuan, a few thousand experience points, and a shiny new fairy.

Many thanks to MarieJoy, master of Perfect World Tiger Server clan Intensity, Jaiden, War_Payne, LordLloyd, JheYc and seventeen for helping me in my Infernal quest. Incidentally, MarieJoy and Jaiden also completed their Enlightened and Infernal esteem quests. Congratulations!