Echoes of Aincrad Side Quest Priorities: Extra Healing Crystals, the Mithril Blade, and More

Now that Echoes of Aincrad has been out for a week, the community has moved well past the opening floors and into the messier, more rewarding middle stretch of the game — where side content starts to pay off in ways that aren't immediately obvious. Two quests in particular deserve your attention before you push further into the main story: Depiction of the Divine, which grants a permanent increase to your healing crystal capacity, and the Mithril Blade blueprint hunt, which opens up one of the stronger freeze-synergy sword builds available in the early-to-mid game.

Both are easy to miss if you're rushing the main line, and both have consequences that compound over time — especially if you're playing on Death Game Mode.

Why Side Quests Matter More in Death Game Mode

In a standard playthrough, skipping side content is a personal preference. In Death Game Mode, it's a risk calculation. Your healing crystal is a finite lifeline, and the difference between having one slot and two can mean the difference between surviving a dangerous boss enrage phase and watching your character disappear permanently.

The game's side quest design rewards players who explore thoroughly and talk to every NPC before progressing through major checkpoints — because some quests lock out entirely once you leave a zone or complete a specific main story beat. Depiction of the Divine is a prime example of a quest that looks optional but functions almost like a hidden upgrade path.

Depiction of the Divine: How to Get an Extra Healing Crystal

This side quest becomes available during Onward to Tolbana, the main quest that takes you to the Mountain Fortress. The trigger is easy to miss because it sits just off the main path immediately after a checkpoint.

Step-by-step:

Progress through the Onward to Tolbana main quest until you reach the Mountain Fortress.
From the checkpoint, head down the stairs — do not follow the main objective marker yet.
On the right side of the stairs, investigate the glowing item on the ground. This is a stone monument fragment (the quest trinket), and picking it up automatically begins Depiction of the Divine.
Once you have the fragment, return to Horunka — the starting town on Floor 1.
Find the priest NPC in Horunka and hand over the relief fragment.
Your healing crystal capacity increases by one slot permanently.

That's the entire quest. There's no combat involved, no puzzle — just a very easy-to-overlook item and a return trip. The healing crystal upgrade stacks with your existing capacity and carries into Death Game Mode characters, making this one of the highest-value "free" investments in the early game.

A quick note on timing: if you've already pushed well past Onward to Tolbana, check whether the fragment is still interactive in the Mountain Fortress area. Community reports suggest the trigger window may stay open for a while, but it's worth grabbing before you advance too far.

The Mithril Blade: Blueprint Location and Crafting

The Mithril Blade is a craftable sword that sits at an interesting intersection of offense and crowd control. Its unique mod — Freezing Gift: Time — applies Freeze to nearby enemies and reduces your sword skill cooldowns whenever those enemies are frozen. The practical effect is a loop: freeze enemies, cut cooldowns, use skills faster, which creates more freeze opportunities. It's a genuinely satisfying synergy for sword-type builds that lean into status effects.

Where to Find the Blueprint

The Mithril Blade blueprint is located in a chest in the Southern Poeni Prairie area. You can access this region during the Opportunity side quest — if you're not already there for another reason, taking on Opportunity is the natural route.

The chest isn't hidden behind a puzzle or locked encounter; it's a standard exploration chest in the area. As long as you loot thoroughly while completing Opportunity, you'll pick it up without needing to make a second trip.

Crafting Requirements

Once you have the blueprint, take the following materials to any blacksmith:

Hard Bone ×3
Magestone ×2
Silver Ingot ×1

Hard Bone is a common drop from skeletal enemies on the lower floors. Magestone tends to come from ore nodes in mid-floor dungeon areas and occasionally from elemental enemy drops. Silver Ingot can be purchased from some material vendors or refined from raw silver at a forge — check the blacksmith's shop stock before farming, as the ingot is sometimes available directly.

Is the Mithril Blade Worth It?

The short answer: yes, if you're running a sword-focused build and your partner covers physical damage. The Freezing Gift: Time mod creates meaningful cooldown windows that can significantly speed up how often you use your strongest sword skills in sustained fights. Against elite enemies and floor bosses with many adds, the freeze crowd control also buys you safe repositioning time.

It's not the highest raw-damage sword at this stage of the game, but the utility ceiling is high. For players pairing it with a partner who deals area damage — potentially triggering chain freezes across multiple enemies — the cooldown reduction compounds quickly.

For more on how weapon mods interact with your build overall, see the Weapons Guide.

Other Side Quests Worth Tracking This Week

The Mithril Blade and Depiction of the Divine aren't the only side content generating discussion. A few other notable quests from this week's community activity:

Cave Diving

NPC Wyzeman asks you to accompany him to Teardrop Cave for material farming. The catch: a boss called Dire Strife Wolf blocks the path. This quest is worth doing for the materials Wyzeman rewards you with post-completion, and the Dire Strife Wolf itself drops components useful for mid-tier crafting. It's a cleaner fight than many of the main story bosses in the same tier, making it a good benchmark for testing weapon builds before committing to harder content.

Complete Side Quest Ecosystem

According to a side quest roundup making the rounds this week, the full side quest list in Echoes of Aincrad is substantial — with rewards ranging from crafting materials and equipment to NPC relationship boosts that affect your partner system interactions. The game doesn't surface this clearly in its UI, which means players who skip side content early are often missing upgrades that would have made subsequent floors significantly more manageable.

If you're planning a Death Game Mode run specifically, treating every side quest as a potential permanent upgrade is the correct mindset. The healing crystal slot from Depiction of the Divine is the clearest example, but the pattern likely extends to other quest rewards the community hasn't fully catalogued yet.

Main Quest Structure: A Reference Point

For players who want to contextualize where these side quests fall in the main storyline, here's a rough structural snapshot based on confirmed quest names:

Quest 12 – Raid Call: Follows Onward to Tolbana; involves Diavel's plans for the first floor boss raid.
Quest 13 – Labyrinth: The raid party advances to the Labyrinth proper.
Quest 16 – Proof of Mettle: Triggers after completing Grip of Despair, with what's described as an emotionally heavy cutscene before the quest begins.

The Depiction of the Divine side quest should ideally be completed before or during Quest 12, since it ties to the Onward to Tolbana main quest. If you're past Quest 13, check whether the Mountain Fortress item is still available — and consider going back to Horunka to verify.

Recruiting Canon Characters: Current Status

Separately from side quests, NoobFeed has published recruitment guides this week for Kirito, Silica, Lisbeth, and Agil — four of the canon SAO characters who can join your party as partners. Kirito's recruitment in particular is tied to the Augite Dungeons, a specific dungeon type that appears to be separate from the main floor structure.

These recruitment chains matter for partner-focused builds, since each canon character brings distinct skills and combat styles to co-op encounters. We'll have a dedicated breakdown on recruitment priorities up shortly. In the meantime, the Partner System guide covers the fundamentals of how partners work in combat and what to look for when choosing who to bring on a given quest.

A Note on the Current Community Mood

It's worth acknowledging that the post-launch community is split. Several threads this week reflect a sense of disappointment — notably a long-form piece arguing that the SAO IP has structural limitations that make translating its death game premise into a genuinely compelling video game inherently difficult. The critique is thoughtful and worth reading if you're interested in the design history of SAO games.

At the same time, the active player community on r/EchoesofAincrad is still very much engaged, sharing builds, tips, and completing full playthroughs. The Death Game Mode in particular has generated dedicated discussion among players treating it as a genuine hardcore challenge rather than a curiosity. Both reactions are legitimate, and neither cancels out the practical value of knowing where the Mithril Blade blueprint is.

If you're still deciding whether the game is worth your time, the review roundup from launch day remains the clearest aggregate of critical opinion.

Quick Reference: Key Side Quest Checklist

For players who want a fast reference before pushing to the next floor:

[ ] Depiction of the Divine — Trigger during Onward to Tolbana at Mountain Fortress (right side of stairs). Reward: Healing Crystal +1.
[ ] Opportunity — Access Southern Poeni Prairie, loot chest for Mithril Blade Blueprint.
[ ] Cave Diving — Talk to Wyzeman, defeat Dire Strife Wolf, reach Teardrop Cave.
[ ] Agil / Silica / Lisbeth / Kirito recruitment — Each has a dedicated chain; Kirito requires Augite Dungeons.

Treat the healing crystal upgrade as mandatory before any serious Death Game Mode attempt. Everything else is build-dependent.